6 Jul 2020

New sparqs' resource: Preparing your course rep systems and recruiting your reps during COVID-19

We are pleased to launch the first in a series of briefing notes designed to support students’ associations and institutions in devising and executing rep systems that can operate in the changing COVID-19 environment, including how they can operate online. This first course rep systems briefing note is focused on the initial planning stages of developing this new system and the subsequent recruitment of new course reps.

As significant changes to learning and teaching processes and structures continue to be implemented for the 2020-21 academic year, course rep systems will need to reflect this learning experience in both structure and focus. The briefing note covers the activity that institutions and students’ associations should consider and implement over the summer and into the beginning of term.

This includes:

  • Updating your strategy, including bringing the right people together and the key elements of the rep journey that need to be discussed.
  • Redefining the rep role to ensure its continued effectiveness in a COVID-19 environment, including changes to the learning experience, updates to the role description and communicating changes to staff and students.
  • Course rep recruitment, including advertising the role and electing reps in an online setting.

Further briefing notes in this series will consider further aspects of the course rep journey in the context of COVID-19, including running effective student-staff committees and delivering course rep training.

The guidance is aimed at all those involved in the process of developing, running and supporting course rep systems in colleges and universities – the responsibility for this varies between institutions but we expect the guidance to be of particular use to students’ associations, quality teams, and senior staff members in strategic learning and teaching, quality, and student experience roles.

See the separate news article on our Course Rep Training plans for 2020-21 in the light of the COVID-19 crisis. The article may be of interest regardless of whether you normally use sparqs’ trainers or materials, as we realise institutional plans may have changed due to the crisis, and are keen to support any institutions having to rethink their plans for the coming academic year.

For further information, or if you have a request for specific topics in this series, please contact Megan Brown, Development Consultant – megan.brown@sparqs.ac.uk.

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