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Taking the online survey to the student.
How FM and LTD used tablet technologies for a student survey.
In December Facilities Management wanted to know more about how students were using the HUB, and more specifically, the food services within the new building. They were considering how they could take a survey to the students, to encourage engagement, and maximise responses.Danielle Doyle (FM Customer Service Team Leader) and Carol Austin (Facilities Manager for Customer Services) contacted LTD for advice on how to implement their ideas. LTD suggested using mobile devices to connect to an online survey, using the Bristol Online Surveys (BOS) service available to Edge Hill staff. The department loaned their own mobile devices to FM as a ‘pilot’ to learn more about using these mobile technologies.
Three students were recruited to conduct the survey for three days just before the Christmas break. Two mobile devices were used – a first generation iPad and a Samsung Galaxy tab – the plan being to compare against the third student using paper copies of the survey. Both devices were able to connect to and run the BOS service, though the battery of the Galaxy tablet ran out before the end of each session (10-3pm). The interviewers said that the mobile devices were great at getting the engagement of students and the survey was completed in a similar amount of time as the paper version – the significant advantage of the mobile technology is the elimination of both transcription time and transcription errors.
Note, though, that the interviewers found the fastest way to gather the data was to get a group of students together and use one paper survey to record the responses from many students – though transcription time and errors need to be taken into account.
A later posting will discuss what LTD and FM learnt as a result of this pilot – and perhaps give some feedback on the results of this survey.
If you are considering how to use technology to enhance the student experience please contact the LTD team via [email protected] or 01695 650754.
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Learning Edge Maintenance: Now Completed
The essential maintenance in the AMS datacenter has been completed ahead of schedule – the second maintenance window scheduled for early Friday morning is not required.
Full access to Learning Edge (Blackboard 9.1) has now been resumed.
We apologise for any disruption this may have caused to you.
Katherine Richardson
LTD Operations Co-ordinator
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Learning Edge Maintenance: System Unavailable Overnight – 29th & 30th December
Learning Edge, Blackboard Learn (version 9.1.7) will be unavailable overnight (from midnight to 8:00 a.m) on the 29th and 30th of December while Blackboard Managed Hosting carry out essential maintenance in the AMS datacenter. This proactive maintenance will ensure the highest level of network performance and stability.
The Blackboard engineers hope to complete the work within the first maintenance window (29th December) but have reserved the second window (30th December) to ensure they can complete the maintenance without any unscheduled disruption.
Please note this work is in addition to the Learning Edge Upgrade which took place between 19th and 21st December.
We apologise for the inconvenience this set of maintenance windows may cause to you.
If you have any queries regarding this work please don’t hesitate to contact the Learning Technology Development team on 01695 650754 or via [email protected]
Meg Juss, Learning Technology Development Divisional Coordinator.
