1. Progress on Using Student Ambassadors to Broaden Maths Support Services John Little supported by the MSOR Network and sigma http://studentmathssupport.wordpress.com/

2. overview definition of role aspects of recruitment planned & actual activities outcomes to date recommendations

3. definition of role ambassador = a diplomat sent on a mission to a foreign country?

4. definition of role to promote services at library sites to gather student proposals for new resources and workshops to evaluate existing and proposed tutor developed resources to make own resource proposals

5. definition of role to be ambassadors for target groups to help broaden services for target groups e.g. distance learners to work as partners in service development

6. redefinition of role anticipated direct student engagement at library sites did not materialise changed emphasis towards development of ambassadors own ideas and evaluation of tutor resources in future a mix of the two

7. aspects of recruitment initial aim was to recruit one ambassador for each of eight Schools that make use of maths/stats/numeracy support recruiting seven meant this really was a recruitment process and not a selection process probably better to have fewer ambassadors and more selection

8. aspects of recruitment probably better to have fewer ambassadors and more selection: to ensure commitment to tasks to maximise ambassador availability to make management and communication easier UG 1 or 2 possibly more flexible than PG consider recruiting FT UG for the summer for non face to face activities

9. aspects of recruitment meet the ambassadors: each contracted for 35 hours at £7/hour plus shared access to two moodle materials developers

10. planned & actual activities (in addition to role definition) contacting Student Union reps to promote role => positive engagement via phonecall/e-mail contacting class reps as a source of resource proposals => very little response development of management reports for year on year comparisons as update of less efficient predecessor process

11. planned & actual activities (in addition to role definition) four ambassadors attended one of our two departmental annual planning days and so are directly feeding into our annual plan -mainly in a recommendation on how to improve our communication with students

12. planned & actual activities the main departure from what was planned was creation of mini projects: blog maintenance => not much engagement moodle viewing figures follow up => eventually passed to moodle developer evaluation of third party resources => aiming to match to resource proposals an internal policy review => awaiting report from ambassador

13. planned & actual activities the main departure from what was planned was creation of mini projects: a review of what other HEIs do => awaiting report from ambasaador creation of a communications strategy => awaiting final proposal from ambassador comparison of different moodle content styles => three detailed responses from ambassadors

14. outcomes to date ambassador blogged feedback on / evaluation of up to 22 proposed resources ambassador creation of five new potentially usable resources ambassador feedback on / evaluation of up to 6 generic YouTube clips => probable re-recording of audio

15. outcomes to date ambassador distillation of resource feedback / evaluation => slides for Articulate conversion too bland positive about links to video, quizzes and third party resources

16. outcomes to date broadening of service? capacity to share data quickly recruitment of one or two maths/stats/ numeracy ambassadors confirmed as part of departmental annual plan

17. outcomes to date broadening of service? we have gained more insight into hard to reach faculty through having Business School ambassadors

18. outcomes to date capacity to share data quickly we can now not only produce automatic year on year comparisons; we can also categorise our data according to target groups and share with management

19. outcomes to date recruitment of one or two maths/stats/ numeracy ambassadors confirmed as part of departmental annual plan => organisational learning

20. indirect outcomes to date filming of five students service feedback (including some from one ambassador) -partially arose from discussion at meeting with MSOR mentor realisation that thesis acknowledgement helps promote stats support

21. recommendations beware that you will get a mix of levels of commitment and productivity wordpress blog works quite well as a means of collating and sharing project information

22. recommendations try to get a mix of UG and PG students a maximum of 4 ambassadors to 1 staff consider FT UG summer ambassadors

23. summary definition of role aspects of recruitment planned & actual activities outcomes to date recommendations

24. bibliography BBC NEWS, 2009. UK University drop out rate increases [online] BBC. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8083373.stm [Accessed 21 May 2012]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8083373.stm COOPER, B., GILLARD, J., GRAHAM, D., WHITE, J. and WILSON, R., 2011. Summer Internships in sigma-sw. MSOR Connections. [online] 11(3). MSOR. Available from: http://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Connections_11_3_Cooper.pdfhttp://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Connections_11_3_Cooper.pdf [Accessed 28 May 2012] HEWSON, P., 2011. Preliminary Analysis of the National Student Survey. MSOR Connections. [online] 11(1). Available from: http://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Hewson.pdf [Accessed 21 May 2012]http://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Hewson.pdf STREETING, W. and WISE, G., 2009. Rethinking the values of higher education –consumption, partnership, community? [online] Gloucester. QAA. Available from: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/Rethinking.pdfhttp://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/Rethinking.pdf [Accessed 28 May 2012] NUS, 2012. Student Experience Research 2012 Part 2: Independent Learning and Contact Hours [online] London. National Union of Students. Available from: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/Student-Experience-Research-2012-Part-2.pdf [Accessed 28 May 2012] TAYLOR, M., BOND, O., ANDERSON, C., KENNEDY, A., 2012. Summer Internships in sigma-sw. MSOR Connections. [online] 12(1). MSOR. Available from: http://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Connections_12_1_Taylor_et_al.pdfhttp://mathstore.ac.uk/headocs/Connections_12_1_Taylor_et_al.pdf [Accessed 28 May 2012] SWAIN, H., 2012. Should students be given the power to decide how universities are run? [online] Guardian. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/11/universities-giving-students-more-power [Accessed 14 June 2012]