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 “Presented in a manageable way, data can be used to predict attainment, readily identify issues and implement the appropriate early intervention strategies”

Dr Paul Dowland, Senior Lecturer at Plymouth University and the architect of the S³ data system, discusses how data collected by systems such as Cengage Learning’s MindTap on the online activity of students, is being used effectively to identify top resources, improve the student experience and underpin success at university.

Student data in the form of exam results has been used in the past to evaluate the performance of individual departments within universities and student outcomes. Today universities are taking this one step further, using real-time data on student attendance, frequency of access to the university’s virtual learning environment (VLE) and level of contact with tutors. This is helping to improve student retention and results, as well as ensuring courses are better run.

Student analytics is defined by the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) as the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for the purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs.

All universities have access to student data through their record systems and learning environments. Presented in a manageable way, this data can be used to predict attainment, to readily identify issues and to implement the appropriate early intervention strategies.

“It is important to remember that while data can be very useful, human skills are still required to interpret and apply the information in a useful way”

Data vs. human

It is important to remember that while data can be very useful, human skills are still required to interpret and apply the information in a useful way. One-to-one meetings between a lecturer and a student can uncover details that data analysis alone would be unable to provide.

A clear institution-wide policy on the role of data drawn from student analytics should be agreed at the onset. Data typically draws on information that is easy to measure, for example, it can confirm that a student has taken a book, but not if they have read it.

Data protection

Universities should ensure that students understand exactly why their personal data is being collected, processed and stored. It is also important that universities resist collecting too much data, irrespective of its relevance – the motivation for any system should be to facilitate information sharing for the benefit of the students.

“Universities should ensure that students understand exactly why their personal data is being collected, processed and stored”

Technology

At Plymouth University, we use the Student Support System (S³) to collect assessment submissions, monitor academic attainment, tutoring and attendance records. This helps lecturers to better manage and support over 15,000 students.

Commercial companies that store and analyse data include Oracle, SAS, Newton and Cengage Learning’s MindTap. MindTap is a new personal learning experience that combines all of the university’s digital assets – readings, multimedia, activities, and assessments,integrates with the university’s VLE and allows tutors to set mock exams using the assessment feature to track student progress and to identify areas where further tuition is required.

The future

Student analytics is an important development in higher education as, in an increasingly competitive market, the potential for using data to improve services, student retention and student success is clearly evident.

“Usually you wouldn’t expect an English Teacher and a Consultant Physician to have too much in common work-wise, but that day was different”

Andy Johnson, Development Manager at The London School of English looks at the decision by the General Medical Council to revise its criteria for assessing knowledge of English amongst its members, which comes into effect this week, and the implications of these changes.

I saw a friend of mine recently who is a doctor. He’s also an Arsenal fan, though he doesn’t like to admit that at the moment! We spoke about a number of things before the conversation turned to football and eventually to work. Usually you wouldn’t expect an English Teacher and a Consultant Physician to have too much in common work-wise, but that day was different and it had nothing to do with Arsène Wenger’s team. The reason was IELTS.

The General Medical Council (GMC) announced earlier this year that from 18 June 2014, the minimum IELTS scores they accept as evidence of knowledge of English when registering doctors to work in the UK will be:

• A score of at least 7.0 in each of the four areas tested (speaking, listening, reading and writing)
• And an overall score of at least 7.5

The GMC will accept only the academic version of the IELTS test. For those who are unfamiliar with the IELTS scores (ranging from 1 – 9), a score of 7.5 sits between a good, and very good user of English. Bands 6 – 9 break down as follows:

An overall score of 7.5 is a big ask. While a minimum score of 7.0 through the four modules – Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking – seems achievable, now it is not enough. If you score 7.0 in say, speaking and writing, candidates would now need to score a minimum of 8.0 in the reading and listening papers to reach the minimum overall score. That is going to be very difficult for many candidates.

“An overall score of 7.5 is a big ask. That is going to be very difficult for many candidates”

Since these changes were announced by the GMC to its members, there has been quite an emotive response. If you take a look at the comments section on the GMC’s site, you get a sense of the depth of feeling on this topic.

Some have accused the GMC of outright discrimination, while others have warned that the UK should brace itself for a shortage of doctors in the coming months. There is an acceptance that of course a good working knowledge of English is a prerequisite to working in the UK, but this is tempered with a belief amongst members that the GMC is setting the bar too high, and that language command alone does not make you a good or bad doctor.

I cannot comment on that last point, but as a teacher with experience of the Academic module of the IELTS exam, I know how hard it is for any student to achieve an overall score of 7.5. I can understand the consternation amongst doctors and wonder if the GMC is making a rod for its own back. My friend felt the same. As a native speaker who works with many doctors for whom English is not their first language, he had a lot of sympathy with those who are going to be affected by these new requirements.

“I can understand the consternation amongst doctors and wonder if the GMC is making a rod for its own back”

The strict deadline doesn’t make things any easier. Students taking one of our intensive IELTS preparation courses often see their overall IELTS scores rise by up to one band. As with many things though, making leaps seems easier the lower the level, but the work required to keep improving becomes more difficult the higher up the scale you go.

That’s not to say that all is lost. Students can find many tips for improving their scores – for example, this blog post from The London School’s Laura, What to do in the IELTS exam, as well as practice activities on London School Online. At the school we see students scoring high on IELTS all the time.

You can hear from Malika, a former student who achieved an 8.0 in her exam here: Malika interview video.

This was originally posted on The London School’s language blog.

“International schools provide a comprehensive cross-cultural education that gives students access to a global, mobile community that is defined by its internationalism”

Emily Buchanan, a professional writer living in Norwich, UK, who’s passionate about education, the environment, and human rights, writes on the value of an international education and the ‘third culture’ identity of students at international schools.

For a young family which is given the opportunity to relocate abroad for a new job or promotion, there are going to be a number of things to consider. From accommodation to healthcare, planning before you go is paramount to a successful move. One of the most important things to come to terms with is education. As a newcomer, what can you expect from an international school and how will it change the way your child defines themselves?

International schools are ideal for expat families in that they cater to students who are not nationals of the host country. This can include children of international business owners, international organisations and companies, foreign embassies, NGOs, charities or missionary programs.

On first glance, this may concern some parents. After all, how will your child mix with their peers if their school is populated by students from other countries? However, many local children attend international schools to learn English and to obtain qualifications that they might not have access to in other schools – such as the International Baccalaureate, Edexcel or Cambridge International Examinations.

These certificates of education are highly regarded and for this reason, demand for an international education is high. The market has grown exponentially in recent years, with statistics from the International School Consultancy Group (ISC) predicting that by the end of the year, there will be 7,200 international schools teaching over 3.7 million students in English.

“Rather than identifying with any one country or culture, many internationally-educated children and adults will consider themselves global citizens”

This market growth can partially be attributed to the advance of globalisation but also to the growth of the middle classes in emerging markets. This new population of working, well-off families has meant that in some markets, 80% of enrolment demand is from local parents who want to prepare their children for foreign university degrees. When you consider that 20 years ago, most international schools were dominated by expat students, it just goes to show how well integrated international schools have become within their local communities.

International schools provide a rigorous and comprehensive cross-cultural education that immerses students in multiple languages and gives them access to a global, mobile community that is defined by its internationalism. Anyone who has been to international school or knows someone who has will appreciate the unique cultural identity this gives you.

Firstly, if you are always on the move, your children will have spent very little time in their country of origin. Therefore, rather than identifying with any one country or culture, many internationally-educated children and adults will consider themselves “global citizens” or “Third Culture Kids”.

At an international school, where you’re from is less about birthplace and more about cultural identity. “As an expat student your cultural identity ends up being difficult to categorise,” Hannah Smith, a 16-year-old British-Taiwanese student currently living in Beijing, writes in the Guardian. “This lack of definition means that I’ve ended up in a murky haze of different cultures, with bits and pieces from everywhere I’ve lived and everyone I’ve met.”

“International students’ culture can be spotted in their tell-tale ‘international school accent’ which is a kind of transatlantic timbre that’s difficult to place”

International students relate to each other through this hybrid identification process and eventually settle on a culture that is typified by their education. This can be spotted in their tell-tale “international school accent” which is a kind of transatlantic timbre that’s difficult to place. The result of an English-speaking education that encourages bilingual conversations and cross-cultural lessons, international school accents give their students a sense of belonging and a root in an otherwise culturally disparate environment.

One of the many great advantages of international school is that students are more open to people from all walks of life. In the very fabric of their education, students are exposed to a multitude of cultures, languages, religions and values. They learn how to adapt quickly to change and how to form and nourish fast friendships. This promotes a broad-minded spirit and a multicultural attitude of acceptance. Indeed, with multiculturalism and International Baccalaureate qualifications increasingly transforming state schools, international schools might not be traditional, but they certainly reflect the future of education in a truly globalised world.

“My favourite case study is about the University of Nottingham in 2010, before the UK general elections… Almost every article about the election in the significant UK media quoted a University of Nottingham Politics department faculty member”

US higher education marketing expert Michael Stoner talks to Gerrit Bruno Blöss about how universities market themselves in an age of digital technology and social media. Michael Stoner is author of ‘Social Works’, a book about social media marketing in higher education.

Your book features more than two dozen case studies of universities employing social media in their marketing. Which one of those examples is your favourite, and why?

My personal favourite is the one about the University of Nottingham. In 2010, before the general elections in the United Kingdom, they saw an opportunity to position the staff of their Politics department as expert commentators. There are three reasons why that case study is so interesting.

First, none of the things that the University of Nottingham did would be far beyond the scope that an expert PR publisher in 1985 would have done, except for the fact that they used a blog, Twitter, e-mail, and YouTube, which of course did not exist in 1985. A lot of the conceptual framework for the campaign was based on sound PR practice. You identify the people that you need to reach out to and how to reach them, and then you work the channels. It’s different today than in 1985 because we are operating in a different timeframe, but the basic PR principles still hold.

Secondly, they were very careful in identifying the outcomes that they were seeking. They were very SMART in setting goals – measurable, achievable and realistic – and they blew all their goals out of the water. They wanted to involve four Politics department faculty members, and they actually involved eight; they wanted 20 pieces of international coverage and they achieved 466… Almost every article about the election in the significant UK media quoted a University of Nottingham Politics department faculty member.

“If you are thoughtful about the way you construct the campaign, the effects can be even more far-reaching than the original goals”

A third reason is that the campaign had significant impact not only because they achieved their goals – but they demonstrated that if you are thoughtful about the way you construct the campaign, the effects can be even more far-reaching than the original goals. You could say that achieving a 15% bump in applications is significant, and it is, but, in a university environment, having other faculty members look to your department as a success is a really significant achievement that is hard to measure.

This case study shows that it’s not so much about the channels that you use, it’s about the questions that you ask, the needs you have. That’s basic marketing 101.

In some of the case studies, the reason for using social media for marketing was to build the brand while keeping expenses low.

Social media is often about keeping the external spend low. One of my frustrations with higher education and some of our colleagues is that they look at an external spend as a cost, but they don’t view staff time as a cost. To me, as a business person, it’s a huge cost. If I have a developer who is working on an internal project and not working for a client, then that’s a real expense to me, we’re losing income. Just because the higher education institution is booking revenue in a different way than we do it doesn’t mean that staff time shouldn’t be seen as a valuable asset and looked at in the entire picture of costs.

“If I have a developer who is working on an internal project and not working for a client, then that’s a real expense to me”

That’s one of the big challenges when we talk about accounting for these projects: if you’re really using social media effectively, people will be spending time on it. That’s time that they’re not going to be able to do other things. You have to recognise that. If you don’t, the project is not going to be as successful as it otherwise would be. So the advantage of a project like the one at the University of Nottingham is, of course, they had a fixed timeframe; it’s easier to run a project like that because the expenditure of staff time happened in a much shorter timeframe.

How much does a typical US institution spend on marketing?

That’s a very difficult question to answer. I was on a state university’s campus recently and they had a study done that indicated that the institution was spending US$71 million on marketing. But when you looked at the budget that was controlled by the university’s central marketing unit, the spend was about $3 million. What’s the right answer? I can’t really tell you. That institution is having a struggle now how to answer that question. And this kind of fragmented marketing organisation is really typical for universities in the US, but also internationally.

Do you see differences in the approach to social media between Anglo-Saxon countries, where education is expensive for the students, and “cheaper” countries like Germany, where institutions rely more on state funding than tuition fees?

“You want to build buzz around your institution because you want better students… perhaps you want to be the Harvard of Germany”

Many institutions that aren’t very concerned about marketing in terms of recruiting or fundraising are interested in social media because their focus in marketing is to enhance the brand value of the institution, so marketing is focused on the brand. It’s not related to student recruitment or fundraising. That’s something where social media could be very important and an essential tool. You want to build buzz around your institution because you want better students, even though you are as affordable as any other university – but perhaps you want to be the Harvard of Germany.

Gerrit Bruno Blöss is a Valuation & Business Modelling consultant with Ernst & Young in Stockholm. He assists clients in business plans, financing and business valuations, especially in the technology environment.

This interview was first published by CHIP.DE in German – read the original here.

“As business becomes increasingly borderless in years to come, the language skills and cultural competencies of our business leaders will become critical to our economic health”

Gary Muddyman, CEO of Oxford-based translation agency Conversis, discusses the language skills crisis facing the UK and explains why he believes languages should no longer be seen as a ‘soft skill’.

Last month, I was invited to address The All Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Languages session on behalf of the Globalisation and Localisation Association (GALA), a global trade body representing 27,000 language service providers. I took the opportunity to deliver an important message: the deepening language skills shortage is affecting UK competitiveness abroad. In order for UK businesses to continue to trade successfully in coming years, the nation’s attitude to languages must change.

No longer should languages be dismissed as ‘soft skills’. It is essential that languages are intertwined with the core STEM skills driving the global economy. As business becomes increasingly borderless in years to come, with languages other than English likely to become the lingua franca, the language skills and cultural competencies of our business leaders will become critical to our economic health. Without language the global economy simply can’t function; monolingual cultures will lose out.

It was estimated recently that the language skills deficit costs UK £48bn a year (3.5% of GDP)

The crisis in language education in the UK is well documented: 2013 saw a 40% drop in universities offering language courses and the number of UK students taking language A-Levels hitting an all time low. It was estimated recently that the language skills deficit costs UK £48bn a year (3.5% of GDP).

Whilst the UK is finally making some steps in the right direction (for example, with languages becoming a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary school children aged seven plus from September) I believe this to be too little and too late. It could take between 20 and 40 years in all reality for teachers to be trained, youngsters to be taught and for business people with the right combination of language skills and cultural competencies to emerge to lead our businesses.

At present we simply do not have the linguistic talent in this country to even fill the jobs that currently exist. My business is based in rural Oxfordshire, but only a handful of my staff are British nationals and have come through the British education system. This is for no reason other than we find candidates from Europe generally have stronger skills in the required areas.

However, the point I would like to make is that it is not just the Language Service Industry that has cause for concern here; the language skills deficit is set to affect British competitiveness abroad generally. Considering the seriousness of these consequences it is surprising there is less awareness of the problem or action being taken to address it.

“it is not just the Language Service Industry that has cause for concern here; the language skills deficit is set to affect British competitiveness abroad generally”

Whilst it remains an uphill battle, it is good to know that there are several strong initiatives out there currently making headway. These include ‘Languages for All’: a strategic effort, spearheaded by the University of Maryland and supported by the British Academy to widen language learning, resulting in an advanced language proficiency in the workforce. There is also what has been dubbed the ‘Global Talent Program’, spearheaded by GALA and primarily sponsored by Manpower Group. This sets out to create an environment in both the UK and US where business and education work together toward job growth and economic competitiveness.

Should you be interested in reading more about the language skills deficit and the opportunities and challenges facing the Language Services industry, you can download a PDF of my presentation to the APPG here.