A number of the University’s webpages were audited by the Cabinet Office’s Central and Digital Data Office (CDDO) in April and, following some remedial fixes, we have now been informed that they have endorsed our efforts and no further action will be taken. Kent was chosen at random to be audited, alongside a number of other universities, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. Checks were expected from 2020 but were inevitably delayed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The areas raised by the audit were minor and were swiftly rectified by the Web Development and Accessible Information teams in plenty of time for the 12-week deadline.

Digital and information accessibility continues to be a high priority for the University in order to highlight our commitment for equality and inclusivity, and to ensure that all students and staff are able to work and learn in ways that work for them, as well as remaining complaint to relevant regulations. Further work is continuing around this area, particularly around accessibility statements. If you are the business owner of a digital platform, app or service, you may need to create or update an accessibility statement. Please contact the Accessible Information team to find out more.

This positive result is thanks to the many people around the University who have worked hard to ensure that Kent remains a sector leader in digital accessibility, and continue to champion equality, diversity and inclusivity in their work and teams.

Staff and students from across the university are invited to join colleagues from across the sector for our third conference to share good practice in the fields of Internationalisation at home and Internationalisation of the Curriculum.  Building on the success of last year’s 2021 conference where colleagues engaged from more than 27 countries, and its digital content received over 1,600 views, this year’s conference is already looking to surpass this.

This year’s theme is ‘The Power of Co-creation’.  We have received 20 pre-recorded video presentations from colleagues around the world sharing their experiences and insights in this area of work.  Topics range from working with students as partners, developing intercultural competences and skills, building a community, to examples of COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) Initiatives. Colleagues are able to watch these in advance of the live conference which take place on Friday 15 July, 2022 from 14:00 – 17:30 BST.

The full schedule of events for 15 July live conference can be found below:

14:00: Welcome

14:10: Opening Plenary

The Potential of Virtual Exchange/COIL as co-creative experience

Speaker: Eva Haug, Educational Advisor for Internationalisation of the Curriculum and COIL, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

14:40: Live Q&A Session with presenters (Round 1)

15:15: Panel Discussion

Our panel discussion will explore whether internationalisation at home (IaH) activities meaningfully contribute to inclusivity on campus.  We are delighted to bring student’s views on this topic in addition to our plenary speakers.

16:00: The IC Global Café Networking Session

In this session we will dive into the conference theme and if, and how, Internationalisation at Home can benefit inclusivity.  During the Cafe, there will be an opportunity to meet colleagues in small, informal breakout rooms, where you can virtually share your hot or cold drinks as well as your experiences of inclusivity and Internationalisation at Home

16:30: Live Q&A Session with presenters (Round 2)

17:00: Closing Plenary

Innovations in IaH Towards an impact practice: a critical reflection

Speaker: Eveke de Louw, International Policy Advisor for the Curriculum and Co-curriculum, The Hague University of Applied Sciences

17:30: Closing Remarks and Conference Close

Registration for this free conference is now open.  Please sign up here.  For more information, please contact us at iihconference@kent.ac.uk

We hope to see you there!

We are conducting a survey on cyber security awareness at the University. We are trying to get an understanding of your training needs and preferences. We hope to use this information to build the most suitable cyber security awareness program for the university students and staff that address exactly what you need.

It’s completely anonymous and will only take a few minutes.

Your participation would be very helpful and much appreciated.

Just click on the survey link to get started and please share it with your colleagues.

The deadline to complete the survey is Monday 19  July.

This week we celebrate the launch of a brand new podcast, Researching the Rainbow! This project, developed by the LGBT+ Staff Network, explores the exciting world of LGBTQIA+ research taking place at the University of Kent and beyond.

About the show

Join us on Researching the Rainbow to hear more about the exciting and thought-provoking advances in LGBTQIA+ research. Listen to staff and student researchers across a wide range of disciplines talk about their work… and themselves!

Researching the Rainbow is coming (out) to you from a flamboyant little closet in the Locke Building at the University of Kent, UK. Hosted by the wonderful Rasa Mikelyte (she/her), and produced by the fabulous Josh Turner (he/him) this podcast is for anyone who’s into exploring the big queer questions!

The first episode available to stream now is with the wonderful Dr Jolie Keemink, speaking about her research into LGBTQ+ inclusive care.

New episodes released every Wednesday! Upcoming episodes include interviews with PHD Social Psychology Student Kirsty Gravestock, Kent Law School’s Senior Lecturer Dr Flora Renz and MA Comparative Literature student Michael Redmond.

Listen, like, subscribe and follow

You can listen and subscribe on all major Podcast platforms such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you can follow our social media accounts on:

Instagram: @Researching_The_Rainbow

Twitter: @RetheRainbow

Website: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2004730/share

It really helps us out if you can follow, like and subscribe so please do if you can!

Does your research explore  LGBTQIA+ themes? Click here to sign up to be on Researching the Rainbow.

This year’s NSS results were published yesterday and, while we are still looking into the subject level data for the complete picture, it is clear they present a challenging set of results for Kent, with our overall satisfaction score for Full-Time First Degree being 73%. Our students’ views and – more fundamentally – the experience they have with us is of huge importance, so I wanted to update you on the work we are doing to ensure we see steady improvement in this area.

A challenging year for many  

As many have acknowledged across the sector, last year was yet again unusual for a number of reasons as we all adapted to the relaxation of Covid restrictions and the return of face-to-face teaching. Both student behaviour and the campus experience itself have undoubtedly changed through the move to more hybrid models of both work and delivery. Our own student surveys present a mixed picture of what aspects of this students have and haven’t liked, and it will take time to work out which shifts are permanent and which are unique to this cohort.

We also cannot avoid the fact that the NSS survey itself ran during a period of industrial action at Kent with an inevitable impact on student sentiment at the time. Notions of student satisfaction are complex, relying on a wide array of individual factors and interactions with staff from across the University and with our facilities and services. However, what is clear is that we have more to do to ensure the effort we put in to support students is felt by them and comes through in what they report back to us.

Improving students’ experience of Kent  

There are a number of initiatives already underway to make sure students have the best possible time with us, all of which will be a key priority throughout next year:

• Student Voice and Student Participation will be major areas of focus, with our Head of Student Experience Mica Rose leading work to better embed them in our work. This will include developing our Your Uni, Your Say campaign to ensure we give students quicker feedback on how their views shape our work and exploring the use of Listening Rooms so we get a deeper understanding of what they are looking for
• Our Assessment and Feedback Steering Group will work to put in place a more systemic approach to ensuring all students get timely and supportive feedback from their lecturers – this will be done in conjunction with ongoing work to review the shape of the Academic Year so that we can bring teaching and assessment closer together
• After a very difficult initial rollout, enhanced KentVision functionality is now being added at pace which will help address the initial issues many faced
• We have a number of EDI initiatives with a focus on student experience, including our work on both the Race Equality Charter and the University Mental Health Charter  
• We will also focus on building a better sense of belonging for students through a more joined up approach to our communications, following an extensive university-wide review

This work will need to be backed up by robust action plans in specific areas highlighted through the NSS and I will be working with Divisions to ensure these are in place going into next year. We will also set up an NSS Working Group in the Autumn Term led by Mica Rose, our Head of Student Experience and Louise Naylor, our Director of Education, to make sure we get positive engagement from students in the 2023 survey from the start.

Student Experience is a key strand of our University strategy and it is critical that we continually evolve what we do to meet the needs of those who study with us. While yesterday’s results make for difficult reading, I know just how much this matters to all of us across the University and look forward to working with many of you to build on activity underway to get things moving in the right direction.

With all good wishes,

Richard

Professor Richard Reece | DVC Education & Student Experience

We are pleased to announce that the latest release of new features for the KentVision Project has gone smoothly. These are now ready to help staff deliver improved processes and better services for students.

My Marks (Student and Staff View)

New enhancements to the view for both students and staff to enable module adjustments from Board of Examiners. This is especially relevant to our students who have raised an end-of-year extenuating circumstance claim – they can now view any adjustments that have been made regarding their claim which was previously all off-system.

As module results are agreed by the central teams and the reassessment records generated (where a reassessment adjustment has been raised at a board) these can now be immediately viewed by staff. However, it has been adapted to ensure this view is not available to students until their formal result is released.

Modules that are trailed (repeat and reassessment) now appear in the relevant stage of the My Marks view.

Board of Examiner Functionality

Functionality is now available for staff to view a read-only version of the Board of Examiner secretary screen which provides a snapshot for the student to view all module adjustments, notes, and alternative progression outcomes from the various boards and post-boards.

On the secretary screens the total credit and stage average values are now displayed to two decimal points.

Enhanced functionality has been released to the central teams to ensure the boards processing report now defaults to the process of the current progression records and ignores any other adjustments from previous boards in the same academic – this is particularly relevant for PGT activity.

Post-Marks Release Functionality

Functionality has been released which will enable Divisions to capture any post-board changes for student outcomes once results have been formally released.  This allows staff to record such actions in the system to give a full audit trail of board stages and allows incorporation of any subsequent post-board changes.

Functionality has also been released to the Central teams to process these requests from a dashboard view within KentVision in a structured and managed way – reducing administration burdens on staff.

Results Letters

Result letters improvements issued as part of the finalist results release are now available to our students via the Results Server.

Module Component Reassessment Report

Improvements to the report will now provide a means to extract re-assessment details by module or students as required for those undertaking re-assessments in August.

This release is the culmination of work behind the scenes, and we commend everyone involved for their hard work – especially the users of the system dedicating time to ensure improvements are realised.

For further information about what features and functionality we are delivering by August 2022 please see our previous KentVision Project Update.

In hopefully the first of many celebrations to come, the inaugural Diversity Mark Awards took place at this year’s Learning and Teaching Conference.

Diversity Mark is an institution wide initiative run by Student Success, celebrating modules that offer an inclusive learning experience and diverse range of resources for their students. It was created by Dr Barbara Adewumi to address the lack of diversity and persistent dominance of Global North knowledge in reading lists and the curriculum.

The Diversity Mark Award is granted to modules that undergo a process of reflection and change, with the support of Student Diversity Mark Officers who review whether modules consider authors of varying race, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality and socio-economic context.

The first successful convenors to achieve Diversity Mark status were presented with Diversity Mark Awards by Professor Richard Reece, in recognition of their incredible achievement. These convenors were as follows:

Angela Harrison for her modules JOUR3010 ‘Reporting and Writing’, JOUR6070 ‘Specialist Journalism (UG)’ and JOUR8210 ‘Specialist Journalism (PG)’. Angela was highly commended for her celebration of student voice and use of diverse learning materials.

Dr Margherita Laera for her module DRAM6850 ‘Theatre and Adaptation’. Dr Laera was highly commended for her discussion of diverse reading material and incorporation of anti-racist values.

Dr Ben Turner for his module POLI3140 ‘Introduction to Political Thought’. Dr Turner was highly commended for his use of focus groups, inclusive and diverse reading list and the opportunities his module provides for students to co-produce knowledge.

These Diversity Mark Awards wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work and commitment to diversifying the curriculum displayed by Senior Diversity Mark Officer Rachel Gefferie and Diversity Mark Officers Tamika Adamson, Irene Binil and Lily Gibbs.

Student participation in focus groups and module contributions were also an invaluable part of the Diversity Mark process, and the Student Success team would like to thank the below students for the integral part they played:

• Johan Mappumchery Babu
• Tarini Tiwari
• Kush Pattni
• Dilara Ali-Osman
• Rianne Okungbowa
• Iona Singh
• Victoria Adeyemi
• Rai-Anna Ellis-Brereton
• Daniel Anenou
• Anesu Muzanechita
• Stephany Bempong
• Renee Washington
• Chris Thomsett
• Ayo Adekaiyero
• Ka Yee (Ellie) Mak
• Tiara English
• Gnebe-Awa Diofu
• Alexander Bharma
• Members of the ‘Reflective Diary’ focus group on module PSYC5890.

If you would like to find out more about Diversity Mark, visit the Student Success website for further information.

Diversity Mark presentations will be taking place across Schools after Welcome Week, however any convenors interested in participating are warmly encouraged to register their interest with the relevant Student Success team member for their Division:

Division of Arts and Humanities & Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice: Kerry Shelton on K.Shelton@kent.ac.uk

Kent Business School & Division of Human and Social Sciences: Tolga Duygun on T.Duygun@kent.ac.uk

Division of Natural Sciences & Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences: Hollie Sanigar-Relf on H.Sanigar-Relf@kent.ac.uk

We’re pleased to announce our brand new children’s sports camp, CricketZone coming this August!

In partnership with Kent Cricket, CricketZone provides a week of professionally-led softball cricket coaching, delivered by qualified and DBS-checked coaches.

This new camp is aimed at children 5 to 12 years old who are new to cricket or keen to gain experience through our inclusive camp. Children will have daily skills sessions based on introductory level softball cricket.

Dates and times

• CricketZone 2022 runs from Monday 22 to Friday 26 August.
• You can drop your children off from 8.30 and pick up at 15.00.
• We also offer a late pick-up option from 15.00 to 17.00.

How to book

• Online booking for CricketZone 2022 is now open.
• Please ensure you complete a form for each child you wish to book on CricketZone.
• Booking and payment can be completed online.

Prices

For University of Kent staff:

• One day £30 per child
• One week (five days) £125 per child

For members of the public:

• One day £35 per child
• One week (five days) £150 per child

Late pick-up (15.00 to 17.00)

• Our late pick-up option includes fun and engaging activities tailored to the location, such as table tennis, table football, new age kurling, bowls, speed stacks, twister, board games, and creative drawing.
• £10 per child per day

More information

If you have any questions about our holiday camps, or if you would like to be added to the mailing list for future camps, please email sportsdevelopment@kent.ac.uk or call 01227 816391.

Find out about the latest release of new features for the KentVision Project in our KentVision: Latest Tools story. 

Since the launch of KentVision last year, we have been engaging with diverse stakeholder groups across the University to determine the schedule for its immediate and future functionality development and release. The KentVision Board has established six Functional Area Working Groups to enable and assess feedback from a variety of individuals and teams across the University. This will enable us to best prioritise future improvements to the system. 

Functional Group members represent a mixture of colleagues from Divisions, professional services and central teams and are split across the following operational areas: 

• Statutory and Core student record 
• Admissions, Clearing and Recruitment 
• Assessment 
• Finance 
• PGR 
• Student Activity and Experience 

The proposed order of delivery has been assessed against the academic calendar and our statutory requirements. Further work will be undertaken following the completion of deliverables committed for August 2022 to strengthen and refine the delivery estimating and create a schedule for delivery into 2023. 

What will be delivered by August 2022? 

We have committed to introduce improved processes and functionality by August 2022. This will improve the experience for both staff and students. Some examples of this include: 

• 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 are improving enrolment and re-registration processes to ensure accurate collection for Data Futures – improving data compliance and the student experience. 
• 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. 
• We will continue to improve 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.  
• Development of the integration between KentVision and the new CRM. 
• 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. 

Next Steps? 

• Technology and process improvements for statutory data compliance and PGR student management areas are to continue with deployments scheduled through July and August. Along with planning for the autumn – the new academic year and admissions cycle. 
• A timeline for delivery from September 2022 of the far-ranging and numerous improvements will be shared at the end of August. 
• Detailed business readiness activities, including transition plans and training and communication. 
• Continuous updates on how our improvements, plans and communications are informed by feedback from our students and staff. 

For the first time ever, the catering department has been able to purchase fresh produce from the Kent Community Oasis Garden (KentCOG).

Several crates of organic Swiss chard made their way to the Gulbenkian Arts Centre Café for Senior Chef, James Argent-Paine, to use in his daily specials. James used his exceptional culinary skills to produce a delicious chard soup, and an equally tasty dish of fish cakes and stir-fried chard.

The chard travelled a total distance of 1.3 kilometres (a 3-minute drive, or 15-minute walk) from plot to plate, meaning the vegetable was not only fresh and delicious, but chock-full of vitamins and minerals.

Local produce is not only tastier and healthier, but it’s also better for the environment, as it eliminates the need for fuel-intensive transportation, excessive packaging, and unnecessary preservation methods.

The KentCOG team commented that it was “so wonderful to see the food grown by students, staff and community members making its way into campus meals!”

Typically, the fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers grown in the garden are available free of charge to volunteers, or by donation to visitors. This is the first time KentCOG has sold its produce at market value to another commercial service.

This culinary collaboration is an exciting step towards a more sustainable future at Kent.

About Kent Community Oasis Garden

Launched in September 2018, the Kent Community Oasis Garden is a multiuse space for students, staff, and the local community run in partnership with East Kent Mind. The garden provides a space for people to grow food, learn new skills, and enjoy some peace and quiet.

The garden is a pesticide free space, adopting permaculture principles and building hibernacula to look after the neighbouring creepy crawlies.

The Community Oasis Garden runs lots of different activities including ecotherapy sessions, insect talks, craft sessions, and foraging workshops.

For more information about the Kent Community Oasis Garden, please visit the Kent COG website.