Measuring The Extent Of Online Placement Resources To Support Computing Students

Nzinga (Ziggi) Deenah and Thomas Lancaster

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This work has been funded by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Teaching Development Grant “Improving Industrial Sandwich Year Placements for Computing Students”.

(This presentation is really of a side-project supported by that research)

The assistance of Research Associate, Kawal Banga, was greatly appreciated.

Acknowledgements

The Main Research Project…

Why aren’t all of our Computing students undertaking a placement year?

The Leading Question…

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Work experience

Experience the process of applying for jobs

Enhanced CV

“Out of the classroom”

Paid for a year

Graduate job opportunities with the placement company

Improved final year performance

Soft skills

We Know The Benefits…

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(Most) Placements Are Beneficial!

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Are we not selling the placement experience?

Do placements not represent good “value for money”?

Is the whole university experience too expensive?

Is obtaining a placement too challenging?

Are we not actively training students to obtain the “work skills” that they need?

Are parents dissuading their children from placements?

Are we lacking administrative support and contacts?

Why Aren’t Students Biting?

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How successful are the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) responsible for the UK Computing sector at using placements with students?

How does the Computing discipline compare with the other academic disciplines?

What are the initiatives and best practice that can be shared? What teaching and learning resources are available for reuse?

How can we ensure that every Computing student gets the opportunity to take a placement?

We Set To Find Out…

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Not many HEIs wanted to share learning and teaching resources…

We kept asking…

Computing placement officers (or equivalent) at 116 HEIs in the UK surveyed (76 responded = 66% response rate) – all of whom offered three year undergraduate degrees in Computing subjects

Focus groups held with staff and students at 10 representative UK Computing schools

We Discovered…

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Why were HEIs not sharing their resources? Did they not have them?

Do HEIs advertise the availability of resources on their websites?

Do HEIs specifically advertise Computing employability and placement opportunities on their websites?

We Needed To Find Out…

The Research Process

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Manually searched the web sites of 116 HEIs during September 2012

Searches restricted to a maximum of 15 minutes (like a student?)

Tried to identify general information of interest related to placements and employability

(“placement” defined in its widest sense)

Tried to identify resources for students available on (or via) the HEI web sites

What Ziggi did…

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employability

placements

professional placement

sandwich year placement

learning resources

placement resources

placement initiative

employer engagement

services for business

Some Standard Search Terms

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Did we really expect all of this information to be available to the public?

Is the search provision on many HEI websites all that good?

Is this really how a student would search (would they use Google? would they care?)

Does the search provision seek departmental pages/other web servers, or just a main university site?

Did Ziggi really not get better at searching as she went through the 116 web sites?

Yes, There Were Potential Flaws…

Some Findings

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79 Out Of 116 HEIs Provided Computing Sandwich Year Placements

 Publicly Available 

Information Identified

Publicly Available Information Not 

Identified

Key Areas Numbe

r%

Number

%

Initiatives Shown On Page

61 77% 18 23%

General Placements Page

77 97% 2 3%

Computing Placements Page

65 82% 14 18%

Employer Engagement Page

78 99% 1 1%All 20 of the top 20 placement providers (according to HESA) had all three types of placements pages

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37 Out Of 116 HEIs Did Not Provide Computing Sandwich Year Placements

 Publicly Available 

Information Identified

Publicly Available Information Not 

Identified

Key Areas Numbe

r%

Number

%

Initiatives Shown On Page

25 68% 12 32%

General Placements Page

33 89% 4 11%

Computing Placements Page

8 22% 29 78%

Employer Engagement Page

32 86% 5 14%

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Pre-placement (e.g. training on writing CVs, attending assessment centres)

During placement (e.g. support mechanisms, keeping learning logbooks)

After placement (e.g. reflection, debriefing)

Resources did not have to be hosted locally – links to external resources were considered suitable (and reuse is to be encouraged)

Looked For Availability Of Resources…

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For The HEIs Providing Computing Sandwich Year Placements…

Pre-Placement Resources During Placement

Resources Post Placement Resources

72%

24%

16%

28%

76% 84%

Resources Identified Resources Not Identified

78% (62 out of 79) HEIs did provide links to external placement resources

What Do We Think?

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Are Computing Placement Officers really the people who teach employability and who develop and share resources?

Are Placement Officers The Right People?

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Does the availability of resources advertised on HEI websites influence student decisions about which HEI to apply to?

Does the availability of resources advertised on HEI websites influence student decisions about whether to undertake a sandwich year placement?

Why are HEIs not advertising Computing placement opportunities clearly on their websites?

Is there a need for sector wide provision of resources to support students through the end-to-end placement process?

Are we just asking the wrong questions?

Other Key Questions

Further Resources

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HEA Computing 2013 Workshop

“Improving Computing Sandwich Year Placements”

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2013/07_March_Computing-Bham-City

Contains copies of talks and notes from the discussions

Workshop Resources

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HEA Computing 2013 Workshop

“Improving Computing Sandwich Year Placements For Scottish HEIs”

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2013/02-May-Computing-RGordon

Thursday 2 May 2013

Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen

Upcoming Workshop

Any Questions?