Benefits of Using LinkedIn For Student Reflection

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1 Project Title: Framing the student journey: Using LinkedIn to increase student engagement with the development of graduate attributes Project leader, Subject/School Dr Dickon Copsey, Graduate Attributes Champion and Employability Officer (College of Social Sciences) Other contributors, Subject/School(s) Dr Gordon Curry, Graduate Attributes Champion (College of Science and Engineering) and Senior University Teacher (School of Geographical and Earth Sciences) Dr Victoria Price, Graduate Attributes Champion (College of Arts) and Lecturer in Theatre Studies (Theatre, Film and Television Studies) Dr Dorothy Aidulis, Graduate Attributes Champion College of MVLS) and University Teacher (Life Sciences Human Biology) Jane Weir, Director Careers Service and Chair of Graduate Attributes Implementation Group Contact details (telephone/ ) Ext: 4570 / Dickon.Copsey@glasgow.ac.uk Summary The primary aim of this project is to increase student reflection on their development of graduate attributes by developing and promoting graduate attribute-focused LinkedIn professional identity and networking profiles. By employing LinkedIn as the medium for student reflections on their graduate attribute (GA) development, this project aims to engage a broader cross-section of the student population than that hitherto reached by GA-focused initiatives and to facilitate increased engagement with an extra-mural professional community. Background Since the adoption of a Personal Development Planning Policy in 2007 and the more recent Graduate Attributes development and implementation projects, the University has attempted to engage a broad cross-section of students in structured and supported reflection on their personal and professional development (P&PD). Typically, these projects employed eportfolio tools (eg. Mahara) as online repositories for students personal reflections. Through a combination of college-wide employability programmes, embedded teaching initiatives, and new professional development processes in the professions 1, student engagement with graduate attributes and take-up of our in-house eportoflio tool, Mahara, has expanded. There remains, however, a broad cross-section of the student population who have not been exposed to these initiatives and are consequently unaware of the benefits of reflecting on their development of GAs. Similarly, where student engagement with P&PD planning takes place, it tends to take place during the honours years of study, and is not seen as a process that can, and should, support the entire student lifecycle. On a technical level, there remain issues of portability with the Mahara eportfolio system and the lack of access it offers students to a broader, extra-mural professional community. 1 College of Arts Enhanced Seminar Series; College of Science and Engineering and Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Science Employability Programme; and College of Social Sciences Graduate Skills Programme. In addition, Mahara is now being employed to support student reflections on professional development in Dentistry, Veterinary, Nursing and Medicine.

2 LinkedIn As the largest global online professional networking tool currently in use, LinkedIn offers an easily recognisable, sophisticated and attractive tool which connects students to a broader professional world outside the University. As a result, LinkedIn offers an immediate strategic return on investment to students who use it to reflect on, record and plan their engagement with the wide range of personal and professional development activities available to them during their time at university. LinkedIn also offers students the opportunity to preserve the culturally and professionally diverse networks they develop whilst at university through their connections with their peers, academic mentors, alumni 2 and employers. It is interesting to note, that college and central service careers staff have seen a significant increase in student interest in LinkedIn student support activities over the course of 2013/14. Aims and Outcomes Key outcomes The overarching aim of this project is to increase student engagement with and reflection on the University s graduate attributes and broaden the reach of P&PD initiatives to hitherto unengaged segments of the student population. At an operational level, the first stage of this project would be to recruit a team of 20 Student Authors from across the four colleges to develop case study LinkedIn profiles which reflect on their development of GAs and highlight the unique qualities and opportunities of the higher education experience. Phase 2 of the project would be to turn these case study profiles into independent e- learning training materials including video, audio, and screencasts - which will guide students through the process of developing effective GA-focused LinkedIn profiles. This phase of the project will also include the development of academic staff-focused e-learning materials featuring targeted excerpts from the Student Author case study profiles. These materials will be designed to support staff in embedding GA reflection into their courses and core teaching. The final stage of the project would be to disseminate these materials and learning resources to the broader academic community and promote them directly to students. Relevance to Learning and Teaching Strategy Increasing student reflection on their P&PD and their development of key skills and attributes through LinkedIn aligns directly with the key strategic priority of promoting new technologysupported, pedagogical approaches that enhance the student learning experience. Similarly, promoting and supporting the process of personal reflection on their development of GAs explicitly supports the strategic aim of developing critical thinking through personalised learning. Finally, supporting students to engage with a truly global professional network 3 could help promote opportunities for relationship building, study and work experience at an international level thus raising awareness of the importance of student mobility. This project explicitly contributes to the objective of enhancing student learning using the University s Graduate Attributes framework. This Framework will comprise the starting point for student reflections on their skills and attributes development and will help them to identify the uniquely higher education-related dimension of their P&PD journey. LinkedIn offers students the opportunity to practice communicating these uniquely higher education-related skills to a range of different external audiences (and there are obvious advantages in considering GA when preparing 2 The university-wide initiative, the Glasgow Careers Alumni Network (GCAN), already relies on students having complete LinkedIn profiles, to interact with an ever-increasing network of several thousand alumni. 3 LinkedIn users figures currently stand at approximately 300 million and, significantly for our student population, is one of the few professional networking tools in use in China.

3 their LinkedIn profiles) 4. By engaging students in reflecting on the relationship between their current studies and their longer term goals and aspirations, this project could also indirectly impact student retention. As previously stated, student engagement with P&PD planning currently tends to take place during the later years of study and is of less interest to early year students. LinkedIn offers the opportunity to engage students in recording their engagement in academic and extra-curricular activities and connecting to academic and professional networks from their first year of study. Developments in this area could contribute to the support for the induction/transition of new students into the University s learning environment and address how we enhance engagement of students with learning, and develop their reflective learning skills in first year. Previous Work This project builds on the previous work of the Colleges of Science and Engineering and Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences Science Employability Programme, the College of Social Sciences Graduate Skills Programme and the College of Arts Enhanced Seminar Series. It also builds directly on the work of the previous LTDF project, Mahara and reflection to illustrate development of graduate attributes coordinated by Dr Gordon Curry and Dr Dickon Copsey. It is envisaged that the new student LinkedIn profiles developed by this project will continue to use the Mahara eportfolio system as a background space to link to from the LinkedIn profile as a repository for the more detailed personal reflections on individual student projects and areas of GA development. This may take the form, for example, of student personal development blogs. This project also builds on the work of the Academic Development Fellows (ADFs) and their GA awareness raising project. During this project, the ADFs held College-wide Learning & Teaching events (Dr Dorothy Aidulis; Making Graduate Attributes MarVeLlouS ), and presented at the QAA Scotland Enhancement Themes conference ( Graduate Attributes; Opportunity or Obstacle? ) and the GU Learning & Teaching Conference ( Improving support for Graduate Teaching Assistants, and encouraging engagement with Graduate Attributes: A mutually beneficial strategy? ). This project also supports the work of the university-wide initiative, the Glasgow Careers Alumni Network (GCAN), which has a database of several thousand alumni situated within dedicated LinkedIn group, and relies on students having complete LinkedIn profiles, to interact with this network. Methodology The project will be led by the Graduate Attributes Champions from the four colleges in conjunction with the Director of the University Careers Service 5 and the SRC representative with responsibility for GA development, VP Student Activities. Representation will also be sought from the Learning and Technology Unit and the College of Social Sciences Learning Innovation Officer. This team would form the Steering Group which would meet regularly throughout the lifecycle of the project to ensure achievement of the project s key outcomes. In the early stages of the project a Project Coordinator a postgraduate or recent graduate with detailed experience of P&PD and GA reflection - will be recruited to manage the key operational aspects of the project. With oversight from the Steering Group, the Project Coordinator s role will be to: 4 It should be noted that for the 50,000 UoG alumni and students on LinkedIn, Microsoft Office is the 2nd most commonly cited skill, Excel is 6th, Powerpoint is 13th and Word is 16 th, indicating there is much work to be done in supporting our students to articulate their higher level skills LinkedIn.com/edu, 1 April It is hoped that the newly appointed University Graduate Attributes Officer, based in the Careers Service, would join the project once they have taken up their post.

4 1. Recruit 20 Student Authors to develop case study LinkedIn profiles reflecting on their engagement with P&PD and GA development throughout their time at university. These students will include both undergraduate and postgraduate taught students from across the four colleges. 2. Train and support Student Authors in GA reflection and effective LinkedIn use. 3. Interview Student Authors to gather evaluative data - and promotional material - on the benefits and challenges of GA reflection and LinkedIn development. 4. Recruit group of student volunteers (approx. 10) to build their own GA-focused LinkedIn profiles and to trial the completed e-learning resources. In addition, the Project Coordinator will work with the Steering Group to: 5. Develop e-learning resources which will introduce students to the benefits of effective GAfocused LinkedIn profiles and showcase the case study profiles developed by the Student Authors. These materials will also guide students through the process of developing effective GA-focused LinkedIn profiles using video, audio, and screencasts. 6. Develop an additional set of e-learning resources, targeted at academic staff, and focusing on students development of academic skills and attributes through their academic studies. These materials will be designed to support staff in the process of embedding GA reflection in their courses and core teaching. 7. Develop a dissemination strategy to promote all e-learning resources to academic staff and students. Potential Applicability / Transferability The undergraduate and postgraduate Student Authors selected for this project will be drawn from all four Colleges and from a wide range of subject areas. The project Steering Group and Project Coordinator will develop self-study e-learning resources, to support student development of GAfocused LinkedIn profiles across the University. Targeted excerpts from these profiles, focusing on students development of GAs through their academic studies, will be embedded in e-learning materials developed for academic staff to support them when embedding GA reflection in their courses and core teaching. E-learning materials will also be shared with Advisers of Studies to support their discussions with advisees around P&PD. In all of these respects, the materials developed by this project will be transferable and applicable to all areas of the University and its diverse student population. Results from the final project evaluation and the project e-learning resources and case study LinkedIn views will be disseminated via the following channels: Graduate Attributes Implementation Group (via four College GA Champions). College Learning and Teaching Committees (via GA Champions). TELT network (via Kerr Gardiner). Learning and Teaching Centre, Learning Technology Short Seminar Series. Learning and Teaching lunchtime seminars. Graduate Attributes student web pages. Evaluation Project success will be primarily determined through the achievement of the key project outcomes as outlined above namely, the development of 20 case study LinkedIn profiles, the development of both student and staff-facing e-learning materials, and the dissemination of these materials to the broader academic community. In addition, semi- structured interviews will be undertaken with all of

5 the Student Authors involved in the project to assess the benefits and challenges of their involvement in this process. These interview results will feed into a broader evaluation of the project process, impact and outputs which will be compiled into a final report. The development of further KPIs, focusing on the impact of the project on increased student take-up of GA-focused LinkedIn use, will be explored. Timetable A Project Coordinator will be recruited and the project started in August Students will receive training and support in developing effective LinkedIn profiles in Semester 1 of 2014/15. Case study profiles will be completed in Semester 2 (Jan- March 2015). E-learning materials for staff and students will be developed during April-May Once this stage is completed, a group of student volunteers (approx. 10) will be recruited to trial the e-learning resources by building their own GAfocused LinkedIn profiles. The final evaluation of the project will take place in May Budget The majority of the project costs will be related to payment of the Project Coordinator and the 20 Student Authors. These costs are outlined below: PG Coordinator 560 hours (atypical worker; Grade 6): 9340 Student Authors (x20) 20 hours each (atypical worker; Grade 3): 3756 Catering for Student Training Total funding Approval Should this application be successful, I give consent for this application to be published on the Learning and Teaching Centre website. Dr Dickon Copsey Signature of Project Leader

6 NJD/JP Mrs Mary Ramsay PA to Vice Principal (Learning & Teaching) 10 The Square 17 April 2014 Dear Mary Learning and Teaching Development Fund Letter of Support for Dr Dickon Copsey Project Title: Framing the student journey: Using LinkedIn to increase student engagement with the development of graduate attributes I write to you as Dickon Copsey s Head of Service confirming my support for the above project. Dickon s proposal supports cross-collaboration with all four Colleges in the University and builds on previous work supported by the Learning and Teaching Development Fund entitled, Mahara and reflection to illustrate development of graduate attributes, led by Dickon and Dr Gordon Curry, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences. As Graduate Attributes Champion and Employability Officer for the College of Social Sciences, Dickon is well placed to lead this project. Dickon has demonstrated within his proposal how the project supports a key objective of the Learning & Teaching Strategy around Delivering an Excellent Student Experience, as well contributing to the University s Graduate Attributes Framework. There is also opportunity around student mobility and possibly retention. I hope that you will consider this proposal and know that it has the College s full support. Yours sincerely Ms Nancy Donald College Secretary Florentine House, 53 Hillhead Street, Glasgow, G12 8QF T: +44 (0) F: +44 (0) E: nancy.donald@glasgow.ac.uk The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401