Dr Sarah Carpenter Cardiff University

Background to experience at Cardiff Discussion about gaining support Useful information that might help gain support

Learning and Teaching Committee (LTC) agreed to fund a pilot maths support service for two years ( and ) Strong desire to continue support Needed to convince the LTC that further funds should be provided This began in Autumn 2007

Take 5 mins to talk in groups to think about what information the committee wanted before it could consider its decision

How much does it cost? Does it work? How many holes it plug? Number of students Number of depts Evidence What happens elsewhere? (Russell Group) Retention rates Aims & objectives

Further discussion in groups What evidence would you use? What evidence have you used?

Not always possible to produce convincing evidence from first year of a pilot Look at information from other HEIs Find out what publications sigma have made available One I found useful...

Dr Carol Robinson and Dr Tony Croft, Loughborough University

At Cardiff we asked for: Dedicated management and admin Increased in hours of support provided Permanent, central location as a home A system for data capture An understanding that evaluation and research could be carried out An understanding of what the service couldnt support – full statistics advice!

The university were convinced of the generic nature of mathematics support The university decided to increase its support for student skills in general, and agreed that mathematics should be included in this support So future funding has now been secured Were still working on the permanent, centralised location...

Would still like to provide full Statistics Advisory Service More difficult to achieve this as it impacts on undergraduates, post-graduates (taught & research) and staff not obvious who should fund Some useful evidence...

PositionFrequency% research student post doc/research fellow lecturer/senior lecturer reader/professor/cons ultant other clinical92.3 IT/admin staff184.6 Total Missing307.6 Total

Stage of the research Frequency% Writing up Data analysis Data collection157.7 Design Missing Total194100