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Alumni Engagement: Supporting Graduate Employability at Cardiff Met University

Sharon Perry — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:03:47 +0000

Here is the final post in my series of short project overviews from the JISC funded Relationship Management Programme. Last, but definitely not least, the project team at Cardiff Metropolitan University have developed an online learning environment (GradSpace), as part of the DePCEA (Developing a Professional Community Engagement Environment for Alumni) project, for supporting the development of graduate employability skills, assisting alumni in their transition to work and encouraging lifelong learning and professional development.

Challenges

GradSpace was developed to try and meet the following challenges:

it’s becoming harder for graduates to find employment after leaving university
the transition into work is not always easy
students expect their time at university to prepare them for employment.

Benefits

GradSpace has a number of functions: learning objects to help support the transition into work and professional development, an ePortfolio, and communication tools for promoting alumni services and events. Alumni are also offered taster sessions on postgraduate courses. Benefits have so far included:

a greater sense of confidence when applying for employment noted by alumni
improved application skills, such as the quality of CVs and application forms
improved loyalty as graduates feel that the University still wants to help them once they’ve left.

Recommendations

Engaging alumni by offering them a dedicated set of resources may encourage them to re-engage at a later date. However, it may be worth considering:

if more than one system is used, ensure that integration is smooth; for example alumni had to log on separately to both Moodle (GradSpace) and Mahara (ePortfolio), which meant that they did not perceive the ePortfolio to be part of the Gradspace offering
implementing employability resources early in the student lifecycle to ensure that lifelong learning skills and reflective practice are embedded
ensuring that any learning resources and materials are selected carefully; for example the project team found that practical resources were most valued.

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: Cardiff Met University
Project Website: GradSpace Website
Case Study: GradSpace: Supporting the employability and lifelong learning of Cardiff Met alumni (PDF format, 1.99Mb)
Video: Developing a Professional Community Engagement Environment for Alumni.

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Alumni Engagement: Using Integrated Web Technologies at the University of Surrey

Sharon Perry — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:15:20 +0000

The JISC funded Increasing Engagement and Value Using Integrated Web-Networking Technologies project at the University of Surrey has been putting together an online platform for delivering events to alumni.

Challenges

The project has used a combination of web, social media and integrated web-based technologies to help implement a cost-effective programme of events that would try and meet the following challenges:

the creation of mutually beneficial relationships between alumni and the University
improvement of the limited online opportunities for alumni with the institution
re-engaging with 25,000 alumni “missing” from the alumni database.

Benefits

The project developed a bespoke registration and booking platform for alumni events, set up an online version of the biannual alumni magazine, established social media channels (Facebook, Linked-In and Twitter) for communicating with alumni, and created a library of online events available for download. Benefits include:

supporting the recruitment of prospective students, if they are aware that there is an established professional international network of alumni
reduction of print costs associated with the hard copy alumni magazine, which can then be used for other aspects of alumni engagement
doubling of the number of Linked-In alumni group members since January 2011 by consolidating a number of disparate alumni groups into one official Surry Alumni Group with separate sub-groups.

Recommendations

When taking a technological approach to alumni engagement, the following should be considered:

do a full audit on any technologies that will be implemented to ensure that they don’t undermine the institution’s reputation; for example, Tinychat was used to deliver the first event, but it it soon became clear that it did not have a professional look-and-feel, nor was it compatible with a number of browsers or mobile devices
consider the timing and delivering of live events, particularly if a large number of international alumni (around a third of Surrey’s alumni are from outside the UK) to ensure that everyone is included
consider the sustainability of any web platform, e.g. is a five year shelf-life long enough?

Further Information

If you would like to find out more about this project, the following resources may help:

Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: University of Surrey
Project Website: Increasing Alumni Engagement Website
Case Study: Increasing engagement & value using integrated web-networking technologies (PDF Format, 333Kb)
Video: JISC Project Video.

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