The KentVision Project has successfully delivered enhanced features and functionality. This will improve the student and staff experience when working on activities such as board of examiners, compliance and student finance.

These upgrades and new features will help improve a variety of processes – reducing administration burdens on staff, removing unnecessary communications, and delivering a better experience for students. It also includes improvements to existing technology released, following feedback from staff.

What has been delivered?

• Improved usability of the right to study screen in enrolment ensuring that students are able to progress through enrolment and re-registration in a timely manner, helping us comply with Home Office rules.
• Improvements to the results release process and result letters ensuring they are clear and meet the needs of our students for the re-sit period.
• Enhanced functionality including changes to improve progression/award rules and exam board reporting particularly for the re-sit period. Post-exam board functionality will allow chairs actions to be recorded and CSAO will be automatically notified – removing administration burden and preventing unnecessary communications.
• Full support for the clearing processes, ensuring permissions are allocated, known issues are resolved, and underlying processes for the new telephone offers initiatives are enabled.
• A new process to roll forward scholarship fund reference data to the next academic year.
• Improvements to the student financial registration processes – ensuring facilitation of student engagement and timely addition of payment information.

This release is the culmination of hard work, and we commend everyone involved for their work – including the KentVision Project Team, IS colleagues, and the users of the system dedicating time to ensure improvements are realised.

Next Steps

• Technology and process improvements to continue over throughout October including Change of Circumstances and also the development of the integration between KentVision and the new CRM.
• New automated communications for student immigration compliance will help us stay in touch with the relevant students and ensure we comply with government regulations.
• We continue to make minor technology and process enhancements for the new admissions cycle – creating a better user experience for staff.
• Technology and process improvements to the end-to-end UKVI reporting process to ensure they are fit for purpose and meet our compliance requirements.
• Business readiness activities, including transition plans and training and communications.

The Cycle Hub, our on-campus bike hire facility, has reopened for weekly and termly bike hire for all students and staff. Hire from a range of bikes and enjoy cycling around campus or take in the beautiful Kent countryside.

Hire prices are £50 for a term, £20 for one week*. To hire a bike, please visit the Cycle Hub at The Pavilion or complete the online form.

We also offer a range of maintenance services and shop items. See our website for more details https://www.kent.ac.uk/sports/cycle-hub

The Cycle Hub is open every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 14.00 and 18.00.

*A refundable deposit of £50 is required for both hire periods.

This is a walking event taking place on the 28 & 29 October at 18.00 for people who identify as female or non-binary.

Meet us at the Gulbenkian and join us for an evening walk to a secret location, where you’ll get a totally new view of our beautiful campus.

Ever:land at Night is a rare opportunity to be at one with nature, after dark, as part of a small group, sharing an immersive experience of landscape, and personal stories of our relationship to other life forms. This is collective time outside in the spirit of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing).

Following the lead of the Reclaim the Streets movement, EVER:LAND, led by artist and curator Emma Leach, is exclusively for people who identify as female or non-binary.

Students are free.

Staff can use code EVER50 to get £2.50 tickets.

Book ahead as spaces are limited for each walk.

To book please visit the Gulbenkian website.

We’re lucky to have some amazing students at Kent. Our Kent Stars campaign acknowledges and celebrate our students’ successes each month.

Do you know of an inspirational student or student group? Complete this short online form to let us know!

If you’re a student or staff member on our Medway campus  this photo challenge is an opportunity for you to share an image or moment that made you smile.

Enter this free photography competition to win great prizes!

How to enter

The competition closing date for entries has now been extended until 21 October 2022 at 17:00. (Late, incomplete, corrupt or inappropriate entries will not be accepted.)

Please email your image (1 image per entry) to Medway Campus Chaplaincy atmedwayinternationals@gmail.com with the following information:

• Your name, contact email address
• A few words telling us the story behind your image (optional)
• The name you are happy to be made public

The winner and two runners up will be chosen by Medway Campus Chaplaincy and will be notified directly via email.

All winning photos will also be shared on the Drill Hall Library social media and in the Medway Campus Chaplaincy blog.

All participating photos will be part of an exhibition in the Drill Hall Library.

The winning prizes are provided by the Medway Campus Chaplaincy.

1^st prize:  £25 Amazon Gift Voucher & a goodie bag

2^nd prize: £15 Amazon Gift Voucher

3rd prize: £10 Amazon Gift Voucher

To find out how to enter visit the Medway website.

Looking for a break from your daily work routine? Want to meet new members of staff and engage with your colleagues in a fun and social environment? Then entering a team in this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Cup (VC’s Cup) is just the thing for you and your department.

 Our VC’s Cup programme is delivered by your friendly Kent Sport – Sports Development Team (Charlie, Billy and Dean) and offers a light-hearted, inclusive and fair inter departmental events programme for all staff across the University of Kent, regardless of ability, experience or fitness levels.

From November 2022 to September 2023 staff departments across the University of Kent compete twice a month against each other in a series of different activities, including but not limited to volleyball, benchball, The Cube, rounders, golf, pub games and more. Last year we had 14 teams including Kent Business School, Division of Human and Social Sciences, Estates, Central Student Administration Office, Division of Computing and, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Kent Union and more.

Typically departments engage during two lunch hours (12pm-1pm or 1pm-2pm) a month. The Sports Development Team contact team captains and vice captains a week prior to each event to inform them of the location, time and rules of the upcoming activity. All you need to do is get a few colleagues together and show up. You will then play against other departments and begin scoring points. At the end of each event, the Sports Development Team tally the results and share these with all the teams. These results count towards your overall ranking and at the end of the last event, our Quiz and Presentation evening, the VC Cup champion is crowned.

Deadline for entries is Friday 28 October at 17.00 – get your entry in now by emailing sportsdevelopment@kent.ac.uk

You can find out more about the Vice-Chancellor’s Cup, what’s happening and when on the VC’s Cup webpages.

The Sports Development Team look forward to hearing from you! 

Introducing KEF2: what the second round of the Knowledge Exchange Framework means for you

The second iteration of the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF2) was published last month, providing us, businesses and other users with a clearer understanding of how the University of Kent’s knowledge exchange activity compares to that of other higher education institutions in the UK.

Why is this important? Because knowledge exchange is the third pillar of  University assessment, alongside the REF and TEF, and has long been at the heart of our research and innovation activities. Knowledge exchange is any process through which academic ideas and insights are shared beyond the university, and external perspectives and experiences brought into academia – which includes everything from business workshops and graduate start-ups to commercialisation and public engagement.

Research England developed the Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) as a tool to track this activity across English Higher Education Providers. The KEF groups similar universities into clusters, depending on size, research output, and specialism, and then examines knowledge exchange activities in relation to 7 aspects. Each aspects is measured in 5 quintiles, ranging from very low engagement to very high engagement. The KEF is a benchmarking exercise to measure knowledge exchange activities against peers in the cluster, but is not a ranking or league table.

The first iteration of the KEF (KEF1) was published in March 2021, and Kent was placed in Cluster X, which is defined as “large, high research intensive and broad-discipline universities undertaking a significant amount of excellent research”. Other universities in this cluster include Bath, Birkbeck, Brunel, Durham, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Hull, Keele, Lancaster, Leicester, Loughborough, LSE, Reading, Royal Holloway, SOAS, Surrey, Sussex, and York.

Our results for the second iteration of the KEF were published on Tuesday 27 September 2022. Overall, they reflect the amazing KE work being done across divisions at Kent and show that, while Kent has some areas that need development, there is excellent progress being made.

Now the Knowledge Exchange and External Engagement team – responsible for gathering the data which feeds into the KEF – would like to give you an opportunity to explore the KEF2 results in more detail. They will be hosting a webinar alongside the DVC of Research and Innovation, Shane Weller, and Director of Research and Innovation Services, Kerry Barber, to talk through Kent’s KEF2 results and what they mean for you.

Sign up to the staff webinar taking place at 2pm on Thursday 20 October

Following this webinar, you’ll have another opportunity to ask questions about the KEF2 at in-person drop-ins with Cat Tate (Knowledge Exchange and Engagement Manager) and Joe Jones (Knowledge Exchange Officer) on 10 and 11 November. Keep an eye out for more details about these closer to the time!

If you have any questions about the KEF or are wondering whether these sessions are relevant to you, please get in touch with the team at keinnovation@kent.ac.uk. You can also find out more about the University of Kent’s commitment to knowledge exchange on our website.