growing careers education from the grassroots · laura brown for their assistance. 5 sciences ......

Growing careers education from the grassrootsPart 2: Summaries of the CCMS Fellowships

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Growing careers education from the grassroots

The Centre for Career Management Skills (CCMS) is a HEFCE-funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) based at the University of Reading. Established in 2005, the Centre works across the higher education sector and at the University of Reading to research and develop careers education and to share good practice. Our activities include: funding projects to enhance careers education provision; researching student career development learning; and the develop-ment of web resources to support career learning.CCMS has funded over 53 projects at Reading and other HEIs, through its Fellowship scheme. These Fellowships have addressed career learning in its widest sense, both within and beyond the curriculum, including employer engagement, interactive online learning, and adapting Career Manage-ment Skills (CMS) sessions for students with disabilities. This booklet contains summaries of those Fellowships which have been completed and evaluated since the publication of the first edition of Growing Careers Education from the Grass-roots (March, 2009). Each summary identifies aspects that worked, challenges faced and the main lessons learnt.

Many Fellowships have produced free resources; where available these can be found on the CCMS website. Although these resources remain copyright of the University of Reading, staff at Reading and elsewhere are welcome to use them for non-commercial, educational purposes, providing copyright and original authorship are acknowledged.

We hope that this booklet will enable staff to find:

• Examples of good practice relevant to their situation

• New ideas for how careers education might be delivered

• Practical insights into challenges and opportunities

• Useful professional contacts

• New material and resources

introduction


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Destinations®, the award-winning career learning website from CCMS, has played a key role in many of these projects by providing a flexible resource for blended learning, enabling innovations that would not otherwise have been possible. Indeed CCMS funded six HEIs to explore the scope for embedding Destinations® in the curriculum and deploying it as a guidance resource. To find out more about Destinations® please see: www.reading.ac.uk/ccms/destinations/ccms-destina-tionshome.asp

Underpinning the Fellowships scheme is our conviction that careers education within the curriculum must be situated and appropriate to the school and subject context. These projects show academics and careers staff working together to do just this; to find new and creative approaches to careers education that work in the local situation.

CCMS plans to disseminate outcomes from these Fellowships on the CCMS website: www.reading.ac.uk/ccms/

David Stanbury, Director Joy Collier, Assistant Director May 2010

If you would like more information about a Fellowship please contact the Fellow, or David Stanbury: [email protected]

CCMS wishes to thank Rosie Andrew who researched and wrote most of these reports, as well as Catherine Reynolds and Laura Brown for their assistance.

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SciencesSoil Science Integrating Science MSc entrepreneurship with CMS 6Meteorology Improving the employability of Meteorology students 8Systems Engineering Learning Landscape 10

Life SciencesUniversity of Liverpool Integrating CMS into medical education 12Agriculture, Policy and Development (APD) Raising the profile of CMS 15Biological Sciences Engaging early stage students with employability 17

Cross/multi-disciplineUniversity of Oxford Career management and the careers interview 19University of Westminster Developing interactives for Destinations® 21Careers Advisory Service mass migration project Migrating CMS to Destinations® and BlackBoard 23Careers Advisory Service disability project Career Management Skills and disability 25Centre for the Development of Teaching and Learning (CDoTL) Investigating PDP and CMS through the iLearn project 27Centre for Staff Training and Development (CSTD) Research staff career profiling 29University of Reading employment engagement Researching employer enhancement of the curriculum 31

External destinations pilotsUniversity of Birmingham 33University of Bradford 35Cornwall College 39Univesity of Limerick 42Roehampton University 46University of Ulster 49

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Integrating Science MSc entrepreneurship with CMS, School of Human and Environmental Science, University of ReadingCCMS FellowDr Mark Hodson, Head of Department, Department of Soil Science

Key wordsEntrepreneurship; business awareness; enquiry based learning; career management skills

SummaryThis Fellowship builds on the previous Fellowship ‘Environmental entrepreneurship in action’ culminating in the development of learning resources to enable non business academics to deliver a module in entre-preneurship. The second Fellowship has integrated and linked career management skills (CMS) within its delivery. The module gives students an understanding of the processes involved in taking a product or service to market as well as developing entrepreneurial skills. It aims to stimulate thinking about employability including recruitment, job roles, CVs, inter-views and transferable skills. The course occupies 20 hours of teaching time (spread over 9 sessions) and 40 hours of independent group work. Delivery is shared between the Fellow and the caseload Careers Adviser. Students work in small groups to identify and develop a course related business idea. They have to research the market, devise a business plan and present to a panel of experts. Students are required to compile job descriptions and person specifications for job role/s needed to support their business plans as well as applying and being interviewed for specific job roles themselves. They have the opportunity to play the role of the employer in reviewing CVs and taking part in interviewing panels. There are four assessed outputs: a market research log, a CV, a marketing leaflet and a 10 minute business pitch. The module is supported by an Academic Guide, a Student Learning Log and PowerPoint presentations for delivered sessions.

Aspects that worked well •Integrating CMS has led to smoother links between the delivery of busi-

ness skills and career management themes.

•Reinforcing key messages about the recruitment process and the needs of employers, through student role plays of interviewer and interviewee has been particularly effective.

sciences

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Sciences

Challenges faced•Encouraging reluctant students to ‘buy-in’ to a module that is signifi-

cantly different to the content and style of other modules on their programme.

•Encouraging students to relate skills and experiences gained to future contexts and situations.

•Assessing the educational value of the module in terms of student out-comes.

Main lessons learnt •Asking students to apply for jobs (outside their vocational specialism)

identified as part of their business proposal was unrealistic, and has now been modified.

•Delivering the career management elements of the module will require continued input from the caseload Careers Adviser.

Possible future developments

•The department is considering the use of ‘Xing’ (Business board game) to reinforce student learning around business development processes.

•The resources developed through this Fellowship lend themselves for adaptation and use by other academic departments.

Resources available

Resources available from CCMS website:

•Academic Guide

•Student Learning Log

•PowerPoint presentations to support sessions

•PowerPoint presentation for CMS component

Contact details

For more information, contact: [email protected]

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Improving the employability of Meteorology students, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Ross Reynolds, Senior Teaching Fellow, School of Mathematics, Meteorology & Physics

Key wordsCareers module, employability, employer engagement, recent graduate presentations, interactive teaching & learning, Blackboard and Destinations®

SummaryThis Fellowship built on a preceding Fellowship and aimed to improve the employability of meteorology undergraduates. It brought together a number of related developments including: the re-development of the existing careers module; proactive employer engagement; the use of the Blackboard VLE to support teaching and learning; and, the use of Destina-tions® as a supporting online career learning resource. A strong focus of the project was to make greater use of outside speakers in the delivery of the improved module including employers, research students and recent graduates. It also incorporated the use of other interactive teaching and learning methods. The 10 credit Part 2 ‘Skills for Graduates’ module is delivered to around 20 students over a 10 week period – with 5 sessions dedicated to career management skills (CMS). Delivery is shared between the Meteorology CMS tutor and CAS caseload adviser.

Aspects that worked well •Visiting and interviewing eight key employers of Meteorology graduates

provided the Fellow with improved knowledge and evidence of current employer requirements, particularly in relation to skills.

•Forging links with employers led to improved employer engagement in wider aspects of curriculum delivery, e.g., offers of work experience as well as using employers to assess final year presentations.

•Using recent graduates to talk about their career experiences. This will be adopted to be a ‘speed dating’ style of delivery (in Spring 2010) as an innovative and effective way of raising career awareness. ‘Students like the young speakers…they can identify with them more…’ – Ross Reynolds

•Using employers and presentations from Masters / PhD students as part of the careers module provided ‘real life’, practical content.

•Experience gained showed that students like using Blackboard as a research and learning resource; they find the employer responses useful for supporting their careers assignment.

Challenges faced•Some employers showed a reluctance to complete questionnaires (on

recruitment practices) before being interviewed by the Fellow for the labour market research aspect of the Fellowship. This was resolved by the Fellow or an accompanying colleague from the CAS taking notes during the interview.

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Sciences

Main lessons learnt •Using employers and recent graduates to deliver parts of the careers

module engages students and provides an effective way of delivering up-to-date and focused careers advice.

•Proactively forging links with employers provides many mutual ben-efits, e.g., it exposes employers to the nature of current undergraduate programmes and provides opportunities to actively engage employers in curriculum delivery.

•Responding to student needs and preferences (through feedback and external CAS advice) can lead to a more interactive, lively and effective careers module in practice.

•Integrating Blackboard into CMS delivery provides a modern way of communicating with students.

•The project provided a good opportunity for CAS and the CMS tutor to work collaboratively, share expertise and sustain the development of the module.

Possible future developments•Assessing the impact of the careers module on student employability

would be a logical and useful second phase project. Tracking destina-tions data over a period of years is likely to be the main measure used.

•Placing improved destinations data, as well as emphasising strong employer links for Meteorology courses on the University’s external website will improve marketing to potential students.

•Providing updated lists of destinations and employers to assist tutors in mentoring students is planned.

•Promoting and encouraging second year students to make greater use of tutors and the CAS in their career planning, is also planned.

•The use of employer based videos to promote career opportunities and working environments is a desirable progression from this Fellowship.

Resources available


•Article – Reynolds, R. ‘Meteorology employers’ requirements of graduates.’ – Planet Learning and teaching in Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences (GEES) – The HE Academy – December 2008

•Careers Module Outline

•Employer Questionnaire

•Student Feedback Questionnaire and Summary Report

•Student Exercises and Assignments

Contact details


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Learning Landscape Design, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Professor Shirley Williams, Professor of Learning Technologies, School of Systems Engineering

Key wordsShared space, student exchange, learning technologies, RedGloo, Web2.0, informal learning, social media, social learning

SummaryThis Fellowship built on the work of an earlier CCMS Fellowship (RedGloo) and complemented the work of the JISC funded MeAggregator project. This second Fellowship aimed to encourage wider use of learning tech-nologies and social media to support informal learning. The project aimed to produce a design concept (rather than a product) demonstrating how students and staff might access a wider range (‘landscape’) of learning technologies through interlinking university led media with other external media (e.g., blogs, wikis and social networks). The resulting ‘Learning Landscape’ design (see resources) demonstrates how technolo-gies can be inter-linked through the use of Web2.0 software to provide an environment for people to interact and share information. This provides further opportunities for career reflection and informal learning to take place. Much of the work involved identifying the functionality require-ments of stake holders across different disciplines and with a variety of backgrounds. The project was led by the Fellow and supported by an MRes student, along with other researchers in Odin Lab and the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDoTL).

Aspects that worked well•Providing a platform for students to interact with others that they would

not normally have contact with, e.g., employed graduates, students from other courses or/and on different year groups. ‘It puts people together through shared interests who otherwise would not have known each other.’ – Shirley Williams

•Accessing social media environments allowed students to exchange subject based interests outside the formal curriculum, develop project groups and take part in subject related competitions.

•Collecting feedback on functionality requirements was achieved through joint work with CDoTL, School e-learning Co-ordinators and Teaching & Learning events/focus groups. These exercises confirmed that people wanted learning technologies to be brought together as well as choice and flexibility over which technologies would be on offer. ‘The individual chooses which technologies they will use, from those on offer within the University and those available from outside…’ – Shirley Williams

•Raising student awareness of the learning technologies available was achieved through departmental talks during Freshers’ week.

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Sciences

•Incorporating links to user owned technologies (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) have shown additional ways of encouraging interaction between people who do not normally communicate; including in some cases making links that enabled students to secure internships and other opportunities.

Challenges faced•Staff changes during the project caused some delays in planned time-

frames and progress.

•Some students expressed concerns about the sharing of their infor-mation online. This is currently being addressed through a third Fellowship.

Main lessons learnt •The School has gained a better understanding of the relationship

between different educational and social technologies and how these can be brought together into one environment.

•Students who traditionally may find self reflection difficult, often find the use of social media (e.g., through blogs) a more acceptable way of learning about themselves through online exchanges with others. ‘To get comments back from others helps with their own reflection.’ – Shirley Williams

•Social media (e.g., RedGloo) provides access to alternative career learning opportunities through online exchanges with employed graduates, staff and other students at different stages in their careers.

Possible future developments•An MSc student dissertation ‘Learning Landscapes – the educational use

of technologies’ is currently being written. Completion is planned for February 2010.

•A third CCMS Fellowship on ‘Digital Identity’ (This Is Me 2) is currently under development following concerns around the sharing of online personal information. This aims to address protocol and personal protection issues.

•Greater funding plus the use of student ambassadors to promote learn-ing technologies to other students would be required to introduce the Learning Landscape design concept university wide.

Resources available


•‘Open Source’ software from the Fellow

•Staff presentations available, on request from the Fellow

•Learning Landscape diagram

Contact details


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Integrating Career Management Skills (CMS) into undergraduate medical education, University of LiverpoolCCMS Fellow Christine Waddelove, Senior Careers Adviser, School of Medical Education

Key wordsCareer Management Skills (CMS), careers advice, medical education, Problem Based Learning (PBL), Destinations®, Liverpool Professional, Special Study Modules (SSM), innovation, research/evidence based, collabo-rative working and networks

SummaryThis project was funded by the CETL for Developing Professionalism in Medical Students and the CETL for CCMS. The Fellow’s post is funded by the first CETL and runs until April 2011. A key project strand is to develop CMS for medical students and this is driven by a number of external reports and initiatives aimed at improving early careers advice to medical students. CCMS funding was primarily sought for the first phase/12 months of the project. There were multiple objectives including: mapping and assessing current provision against the Careers Education Benchmark Statement (CEBS); evaluating the scope for using problem based learning (PBL) approaches to deliver CMS themes; identifying other opportunities to integrate CMS across a 5 year programme, with the focus on year one interventions; developing resources and careers adviser input to support these interventions; exploring the potential to interface Destinations® with other student centred technologies.

Aspects that worked well•Customising Destinations® to meet the needs of medical students is pro-

gressing well. Video clips and case studies are being added. Liverpool’s medical student website www.liverpool.ac.uk/medcareers will have deep-links to Destinations®.

•Improving CMS to year one students has been achieved in part through the introduction of ‘Liverpool Professional.’ This involves a mix of activi-ties including an annual appraisal with their PBL tutor, consideration of medical speciality choices as well as Personal Development Planning, CV and portfolio building. Students can access supporting materials which will include Destinations® through Liverpool’s Blackboard site.

•Using Special Study Modules (SSM) as a vehicle to deliver CMS during the first 3 years of medical training has proved successful. SSMs provide students with opportunities to develop their career learning. Modules involve academic research/literature review; student reflection; using self assessment tools for medical students (e.g., Sci 59) and timetabled tutorials. Four topic areas have been developed to date.

life sciences

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Life sciences

•Embedding a careers planning talk in the 3rd year to introduce CMS to students has been a key success.

•Developing CMS for 5th year students has been primarily achieved through developing portfolios – student reflection based approaches and materials. This includes CV building, a CV checking service, an exercise involving 3 interviews with medical staff as well as portfolio building. Job applications are supported by workshops and individual advice.

•Informing students about medical speciality choices through an alter-native style careers fair was well received by students. Ten teams of specialists talked about their speciality for a set amount of time with the aim of ‘staying in the balloon’. Event evaluation showed that many considered specialisms that they might never have looked into had they attended a traditional fair. Two careers fairs have taken place to date and have received excellent student feedback. ‘They find it informative, humorous and a good way of finding out about medical specialities that they may not have considered.’ Chris Waddelove.

•Working with a researcher in a research based environment provided opportunities for in-depth evaluation and publications, e.g., ‘First year students’ perceptions of a career in medicine – how can these inform careers support?’

Challenges faced•PBL is a key feature of medical training at Liverpool and was initially

considered as an innovative way of integrating CMS. Research was undertaken to find PBL scenarios during the first 2 years of medical training that offered suitable locations for career learning. e.g., looking at specific job roles in a medical scenario. The curriculum at Liverpool following a review is in flux. Integration of careers PBL scenarios is delayed, but will take place eventually.

•The Fellow worked primarily on her own, with support from a research fellow. Finding external networking opportunities was therefore vital to both her personal and professional development.

•Demand for careers support in the 5th year is high (e.g., checking 220+ application forms in a 2–3 week period) and had time implications for the Fellow.

Main lessons learnt •Knowing when and how to engage students in CMS have been key

themes evaluated by this Fellowship. Finding the right models, style and language to deliver CMS have been key learning outcomes from the project.

•Using evidence/research based approaches (through the SSMs) to deliver CMS has worked particularly well. The Liverpool experience suggests that understanding and fitting in with the academic ethos of the School can provide routes into curriculum based delivery. Relationships and credibility are often improved by research, publications and academic presentations to back up and promote CMS to staff and students.

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•Using an external network through the Medical Careers Advisory Network provides many opportunities to network with other medical careers advisers as well as engage in national development work. The latter has included training around careers advice provided by medical staff and integrating CMS into an online post graduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning for clinicians.

•Destinations® has provided an excellent basis to develop CMS; it pro-vided instant resources and credibility to support the other development work across the year groups.

Possible future developments•Development work will continue as part of the current CETL for Devel-

oping Professionalism in Medical Students.

•Feedback shows that educational guidance (i.e., choosing medical speci-alities) as well as career management is highly valued by the School. It is hoped that this will continue beyond the lifespan of the CETL funding.

•An independent evaluation of the CETL and CMS strand in particular is taking place at the Evaluation Unit at the University of Liverpool.

Resources available


•Example SSM Outlines (2)

•Published research for ICG and AGCAS o http://www.icg-uk.org/

constructingthefuture_v.htmlo http://www.agcas.org.uk/

articles/218-Liverpool-hosts-balloon-debate-for-medical-students

•External Reportso Modernising Medical Careers

– Career Management: An approach for medical schools, deaneries, royal colleges and trusts. NHS 2005 (PDF)

•Links to other resourceso Sci 59 online – Speciality Choice

Inventory

•Guide to Problem Based Learning

Contact details


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Life sciences

Raising the profile of Career Management Skills (CMS) in the School of Agriculture, Policy & Development (APD), University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Dr Alistair Murdoch, Senior Research Fellow, APD

Key wordsCMS, three year programme, split module, Blackboard, Destinations®, recent graduates, timetabling, timing of CMS, personal tutors, tutor briefings

SummaryThis Fellowship built on the previous Fellowship aimed at piloting Destinations® at Reading during 2006–07. The SAPD was one of five courses involved in this initial pilot phase. The second Fellowship aimed to increase student careers awareness throughout degree programmes, where previously this had been concentrated at the end of the first year, with disappointing results. Following feedback and SWOT analysis on the pre 2007 CMS provision, it was considered that this had been too early for students and motivation had been poor as a result. The second Fellow-ship enabled the School to revise its CMS provision, make it more relevant and timely for students as well as move towards a three year pattern of delivery. It also enabled the School to strengthen its careers dialogue with tutors. The project aimed for 75% of the School’s graduates to leave with a clearer idea of their career plans and an up-to-date CV. This was achieved by splitting the original CMS module into two parts, allocating 2.5 credits to each during Part 2 of the programme and linking this to the Univer-sity’s Personal and Academic Record (PAR) process and personal tutor system. The first part (end of Year 1) focused on gaining skills and experi-ence and the second (end of Year 2) on gaining a graduate level job. The revised 16 hour, 5 credit module is compulsory, assessed and comprises interactive lectures complemented by online resources via Blackboard and Destinations®. Career learning inputs during the first part include: finding your personal profile; developing a short term action plan; making effective applications for work experience placements including writing a CV and covering letter; and an organised employer visit. Career learning inputs for the second part include: graduate career opportuni-ties; revising and updating a longer term action plan; a graduate level job study; a graduate level CV and covering letter; and interview skills/assessment centre preparation. Module delivery is led by Careers Advisers from Reading in conjunction with School staff and includes the use of speakers including past graduates and employers. Marking and assessment of eight student assignments is undertaken by two CMS tutors including the Fellow. The CMS provision is further enhanced during Year 3 through student contact with personal tutors and a School based careers fair.

Aspects that worked well•Experience of running the revised programme has led to improved

student awareness of the importance of CMS and employability.

•Revising the module in terms of content and timing has made CMS more relevant to students.

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•Introducing interviewing role plays undertaken by staff and students is effective and well received by students.

•Winning personal tutors over as part of the change management process was identified and achieved by SAPD staff through running two lunchtime sessions. This enabled the School to engage staff, bring them on board as well as encouraging debate.

•Increasing contact with industry through the revised module has enabled the School to access up-to-date technical knowledge, access guest speakers, arrange visits and provided opportunities for collabora-tion. This adds value to degree programmes and raises the profile of the School.

•Module delivery involving expertise and resources in the Careers Advisory Service added value to content and breadth as well as access to external resources and support.

•Integrating the module with promotion of work placements and the need to obtain work experience.

Challenges faced•Structural timetabling issues (e.g., exams and the constraint of having a

three year CMS input as a Part II module) can make the timing of CMS modules problematic in practice.

•Marking and assessment of student work is time consuming and return-ing work quickly can add pressure to staff. However, rapid feedback is needed to enable students to continue in their career development journeys.

•Involving personal tutors in CMS developments needs continued promo-tion.

•Engaging students in Year 3 optional CMS related activities needs on-going promotion, e.g., they are often reluctant to visit/use the personal tutor system in Year 3.

Main lessons learnt

•Using alumni contacts/recent graduates in the delivery of CMS modules works well. Students often relate them more easily and take on board their recent experiences and messages about career development more seriously, than perhaps other university led presentations.

•Running a School based careers fair with degree relevant organisations in attendance can increase student interest and careers awareness.

•Targeting CMS to students at the right time is critical to its success, particularly in relation to their own self reflection about careers, i.e., ‘hitting students when they are most receptive.’ Alistair Murdoch.

•Bringing other staff within the School along on a new initiative is vital as part of the change management process.

Possible future developments•More work with Year 3 is planned for 2010, e.g., further work with

personal tutors (engagement, consistency of student advice, etc); develop-ment of a questionnaire to capture CMS effectiveness.

Resources available


•PowerPoint presentations to tutors

Contact details

For more information, contact: [email protected] [email protected]

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Life sciences

First footsteps – engaging early stage students (parts 1 & 2) with employabilityCCMS Fellow Dr Ross Cameron, School of Biological Sciences

Key wordsEmployability, business awareness, career management skills (CMS), Science Communication module, careers event, self reflection

SummaryThe overall aim of the project was to enhance employability by capti-vating student interest and awareness about career development from an early stage. Key objectives included; embedding specific employability activities in Parts 1 & 2; developing a database of employment statistics to help inform student choices and market future programmes; capturing student attitudes on employability in Part 1; exploiting IT systems such as Blackboard and Destinations® to enable students to present their portfolios and CVs in a professional manner. During the early phase of the project, a steering group was set up to provide feedback on current careers provision within the School. Student feedback suggested that the existing careers module and university careers fair did not fully meet the needs of Biological Sciences students. They wanted something even more relevant to their subject area and interests.

Attempts to introduce career elements through a Part 1 module were limited however, due to timetabling problems. Following a meeting with representatives from CCMS, the Careers Advisory Service (CAS) and the School, the project was re-scoped in light of discussion and earlier student feedback. The project refocused its attention on improving Part 2 delivery, mainly through the introduction of a School based one day careers event and linking this to an assignment delivered through the compulsory Science Communication module. The 10 week module includes a large component of career management learning worth 5 credit points, planned with the CMS tutor and delivered by caseload careers adviser. 14 organi-sations attended the careers event and included 2 keynote speakers. The event was open to all students but made compulsory for Part 2 students. 140 students attended, Satisfaction questionnaires were used with both students and employers after the event.

Aspects that worked well•Linking the careers event and assignment (researching 2 organisations)

to the Science Communication module made attendance compulsory for Part 2 students.

•Networking with employers was improved – employers were impressed with the level of student preparation. Relationships and questions to employers were more in depth.

•The careers event course work provided an excellent self reflection opportunity for students to consider their preferences and concerns around employment within their subject area. It also provided improved information for the School on employer requirements and student career preferences.

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•Employing a work experience student (from the SEED scheme at Reading) to help plan and organise the event was cost effective – an idea originally suggested by CAS.

•Attitudinal data collected before and after the careers event and Science Communication module suggest that students’ careers awareness had improved. ‘The importance of elements such as work experience, career options available, the process of applying for a job and where/how to find out more appeared to be taken ‘on-board’ by many students.’ (from Final Report.)

•Flexibility within this project improved the overall outcomes. The original targets did change somewhat and the project was allowed to evolve around more feasible and progressive pathways.

Challenges faced

•Introducing CMS to Part 1 students can be too soon and requires a different approach. Many are still dealing with transition and confidence issues.

•Lack of flexibility in subject timetabling made embedding CMS in Part 1 difficult, but did lead to a change of tactic and focus.

•Engaging some academics in careers/employability can be difficult; using email during this project yielded disappointing results in practice.

•Return rates for student satisfaction questionnaires (post careers event) were disappointing (=10%), despite the offer of a £50 book token prize incentive. In hindsight, collecting student feedback may require a different approach.

•Attendance at the careers event by Part 1 and Part 3 students was under represented, despite email and poster advertising.

Main lessons learnt •This project shows how collaboration and the com-

bined expertise of CCMS, CAS and the School can generate a highly positive outcome.

•The development of the careers event and Science Communication module demonstrates how CMS can be adapted in a subject specific way to make it more relevant to students.

•Linking the careers event and supporting assignment to a compulsory module can improve attendance at careers events and student career learning.

•Raising career awareness through the curriculum needs to be flexible, innovative and imaginative. Dedicated modules on CMS do not appeal to some students. Finding subtle, more integrated approaches to CMS delivery can improve student interest and outcomes.

•Finding the right academics with the commitment and interest who can engage with CAS on employ-ability and business awareness in an imaginative way is critical to delivering curriculum based career learning.

•Communicating wider developments in CMS taking place outside the School requires regular dialogue to ensure all parties are kept up to date.

Possible future developments•The School intends to run the careers event on a

biennial basis, linked to compulsory assessment.

•The School will continue to collect and build data on subject based graduate employment trends.

•The School aims to use improved destinations data to help market programmes through open days, public-ity materials and student case studies.

•The School aims to identify other modules where careers and business awareness could be embedded.

Resources available


•Final Report – July 2009

Contact details


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Cross/multi-discipline

Career management and the careers interview at the University of OxfordCCMS FellowAngus McKendrick: Careers Adviser, Careers Service

Key wordsCareers interviews; career choice theories; decision making; student reflection

SummaryThe project aimed to engage students in career theory prior to their careers interviews, to assist them in their decision making. This was achieved by researching and developing a student handout outlining the major theories around career choice and development entitled ‘How do people choose and build careers?’ This identified four key theories (Person-environment; Development, Structural and Happenstance) as well as questions for consideration. Careers service staff were briefed on the project aims and process for student self selection. The sample group was originally set at 30. This proved more difficult to achieve than anticipated, resulting in a final group of 16 students. The approximately 45 minute long interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. These focused on discussions around the relevance of career theory to individual circum-stances and choices. Most students taking part were reported to engage with the theory and were able to relate one or more pertinent theory to their own situation.

Aspects that worked well •Using careers theory led to deeper reflective discussions and helped

clients relate personal experience to theory.

•Increased confidence in conducting careers interviews. The careers adviser was able to engage in wider discussions around career choice.

•Positive reaction from colleagues. Constructive feedback on the handout led to improved content.

•Developing a stand-alone resource has proved popular with other careers services.

Challenges faced•Researching information for the handout was time consuming, but

proved a valuable investment.

•Variation of interviews from the original project plan, due to difficulties in getting enough referrals (at a quieter time of year) and persuading busy students to undertake extra reading prior to their careers inter-view.

Main lessons learnt •Valuable professional development opportunity to increase knowledge

and reflect on practice.

•Enabling practitioners to become more aware of careers theory can impact positively on practice, in particular, the quality and content of careers interviews.

cross/multi-

discipline

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•While some literature that links careers theory and careers practice does exist, the careers community would benefit from this literature being made more visible.

•There may be difficulties in transferring this approach to careers services which use shorter careers interviews, but greater potential where longer term career coaching models are being developed.

•Explicitly including careers theory within the guidance interview does appeal to some clients who feel that this can enhance the quality of the interaction.

Possible future developments•An article is planned for publication in Phoenix for October 2009.

•Further development of the handout is planned including; use in the CCMS Destinations® website; as a stand-alone resource and as a potential resource in careers management skills delivery.

Resources available


•Project Report.

•Handouts ‘How do people choose and build careers?’ (PDF & Publisher formats) Project based and stand alone versions.

•Briefing sheets for staff.

Contact details

For more information, contact: angus.mckendrick@ careers.ox.ac.uk

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Destinations® Interactives, University of WestminsterCCMS Fellows John McMenamin, Employability and IT Consultant

Dr Wayne Clark, Senior Manager, Research and Development

Careers & Student Employment (CaSE)

Key wordsDestinations®, Interactive exercises, technology based, Body Language, CVs, Job Interviews, career development learning

SummaryThis Fellowship aimed to design, test and implement four interac-tive exercises for inclusion in the Destinations® package from 2010 onwards. The exercises were developed as enhancements to the existing content with a specific focus on integrating an interactive component to the resources. The exercises have been designed to support career development learning, with particular reference to job applications and interviews. The four exercises lasting between 5 – 20 minutes each include: i) Body Language Quiz; Preparing for Interviews; Interactive CV; Interactive Job Interview. The first two shorter exercises involve a multiple choice format; the latter two longer exercises involve interactive input, scoring and processing and output in the form of a personalised feedback report. The Fellowship involved research and consultation with CCMS, purchasers and pilots over the demand and feasibility for particular exercises to be included in the Destinations® content. User evaluation at the testing stage was obtained from careers service practitioners at Westminster and Imperial College, CCMS, a graduate employer and students and was used to inform refinements/changes to exercises during the development phase. Other outputs from the project include a Methodology Template to assist other developers in considering inter-active developments of this type as well as an Installation Guide for purchasers of Destinations® wishing to install the interactive exercises for their own use.

Aspects that worked well•Including extra interactive exercises makes Destinations® more interac-

tive, more visual and brings the content further to life. ‘…these exercises have added an interactive component to the Destinations® package such that users are able to engage with the relevant materials beyond a ‘one-way’ provision of online information.’ From Final Report.

•Providing a personalised feedback report to the user at the end of inter-active exercises (e.g., CVs and Interviews) is a particular feature and strength of this resource. This enhances the learner’s experience of using Destinations® as well as improving career development learning around job seeking in a practical and transferable way.

•Providing the Fellow with opportunities to further develop IT skills, par-ticularly in Flash 8 and Action Scripting.

•Bringing together both internal and external strategic partners to work on this Fellowship project provided excellent opportunities for partner-ship working on a mutually beneficial product.

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Challenges faced•Finding a graduate employer to take part in filming and provide gradu-

ate questions for the Interactive Job Interview was initially difficult, but resolved through contacts made at AGCAS Biennial. A representative from Enterprise Rent-a-Car agreed to take part in the Interactive Job Interview.

•Reducing the number of questions asked on the Interactive Job Interview was needed to keep the exercise within a realistic completion time-frame.

•Designing the interactive exercises was a lengthy process and required time and flexibility to make changes and evolve the exercises in the light of experience and feedback.

•Obtaining sufficient student feedback during the summer was difficult due to timing and lack of students on campus.

Main lessons learnt •The interactive exercises provide enormous potential to enhance and

support existing Careers Advisory Service (CAS) and Career Manage-ment Skills (CMS) activities across higher education institutions as follows: i) as a stand-alone resource to support one-to-one interventions around CVs and Interviews; ii) as part of CMS delivery in the curricu-lum; iii) as part of assessed or accredited CMS modules.

•Technology based interactive exercises provide an effective medium to get across current priorities and themes around graduate recruitment and employer needs. This helps to reinforce similar written and verbal messages on employability from other sources.

•The development of similar interactive exercises elsewhere does require sufficient resources, skilled developers and appropriate software & hardware. A deficiency in any of these areas can make the develop-ment process difficult, impossible or simply not cost effective. Similarly, the installation of the Destinations® does require a level of IT skills to implement.

•A mix of exercises with different timescales is recommended to cater for the range of attention spans. Being realistic about student time limits for interactive exercises was a key learning point from the project.

•The methodology template established will be of value to anyone design-ing future exercises of this type.

Possible future developments•A fifth interactive is being considered around enterprise and entre-

preneurial skills. This will concentrate on a diagnostic tool for those wishing to investigate self employment as a possible career option.

•Obtaining further student feedback on ideas for more interactive exer-cises is a possible second stage phase for this project.

•Promoting Destinations® and the interactive exercises is a priority for Westminster and will be achieved by student exposure and use through Blackboard VLE (& deep-links to Destinations®) and CaSE’s own website.

•Wider dissemination of the project’s outcomes is planned through the Destinations® community, AGCAS, Phoenix and internally.

Resources available


•Destinations® Interactive Fellowship: Final Report (December 2009)

•Interactive Exercises for Destinations®: Installation Guide

•Methodology template

Contact details

For more information, contact: j.mcmenamin@ westminster.ac.uk [email protected]

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Careers Advisory Service (CAS) Mass migration of Destinations® and Careers Management Skills (CMS) using Blackboard, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Claire Jones, Careers Adviser, Careers Advisory Service

Key wordsVLE, Blackboard, Career Management Skills, Destinations®, subject linked, one stop online career learning resource

SummaryThe aim of this Fellowship was to provide a customisable Blackboard module to assist the remaining 16 courses at Reading not using a VLE to support CMS delivery, to fully incorporate Blackboard and Destinations® into their approach.

The Fellowship was shared between the Careers Education Manager and Careers Adviser in conjunction with CDoTL. It developed as a two-stage project involving; i) the creation and promotion of a model Blackboard site that could be copied and contextualised for different courses, and ii) the development of course specific resources for all taught CMS courses. This enabled the CAS to transfer its CMS module and supporting resources to the Blackboard site, thus making it the main location for an online career learning resource for CMS delivery. Each CMS module has its own Blackboard site, with access to deep-links to Destinations®. The site covers an overview of the CMS module and outcomes, individual timetabled sessions, course work, assessed assignments and further resources. A pre and post CMS self assessment tool enables students to measure impact. Student evaluation of course work tasks are included.

Aspects that worked well

•Providing a one stop career learning resource area for staff and students.

•Accessing additional features through Blackboard, e.g., announcements and group emails.

•Equipping CAs to develop their own expertise in using Blackboard and developing their CMS sites.

•Contextualising student materials to reflect subject specific information and the learning style of particular course groups.

•Enabling students to access Destinations® more easily and flexibly.

•Increasing opportunities for open dialogue about CMS issues and stronger links with academic staff.

Challenges faced

•Finding expertise to draw on from the wider higher education commu-nity at a time when there was little experience of using Blackboard to deliver CMS.

•Using Blackboard as a VLE highlighted some inherent technical difficul-ties from a building and user perspective.

•Accessing advice and support is critical in the early phases in building the module, particularly for careers advisers who may lack expertise in using learning technology.

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•Consultation was often complex and time consuming. Significant resources were spent on structuring the module and agreeing on a con-sistent format. ‘Trying to please academics, students, careers advisers as well as adhering to good practice guidelines often meant going round in circles!’ – Claire Jones

Main lessons learnt

•Producing a ‘skeleton’ Blackboard module that can be copied and adapted is an effective way of moving a large number of courses over to VLE use.

•Additional learning technology advice is needed to support such devel-opments in the early stages.

•Supporting CMS through blended learning delivery has resulted in a step change in approach, and is now seen as a distinct feature of CMS delivery at Reading.

•Consultation needs to be formalised and focused to ensure that user requirements, feedback and ideas are captured effectively.

Possible future developments•The site continues to develop, with CAS leading on further contextualis-

ing of sites and materials for Schools.

•A full set of subject specific pages for the Reading version of Destina-tions® will be completed for 2009/2010.

•Further evaluation will be gained through tutors, careers advisers and students, using focus groups and online feedback.

•‘How to Guides’ and a ‘Good Practice Guide’ will be produced to support staff developing their sites.

•The Blackboard module has been made available through the Destina-tions® Community Google Group and highlighted at CCMS events and is available for other services to take and adapt for their situation.

Resources available


•Blackboard module available from Destinations® Community Google Group.

Contact details

For more information, contact: c [email protected]

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Career Management Skills (CMS) and Disability, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Fiona Corby: Disability Careers Adviser, Careers Advisory Service

Key wordsDisability, Equal Opportunity, DDA, reasonable adjustments, changing attitudes, enhancing teaching & learning, supporting and meeting needs.

SummaryThe project aimed to develop CMS materials and approaches for students with Dyslexia and Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Evidence from working with these groups and student services colleagues suggested that these students experienced difficulties with existing approaches to curric-ulum-based career learning (e.g., with self awareness and personality, writing skills and processing information). The project researched good practice in teaching and assessing students with these difficulties. New learning materials and assignments were created, and guides for staff. Overall the project emphasised the different needs of these two client groups. Students with ASD were found to benefit from being provided with alternative learning and assessment activities, whereas, for Dyslexic students, the transmission of information was more important.

Aspects that worked well •Having prior knowledge of student difficulties and experience from

a previous Fellowship on Assignments, helped to guide the project’s development.

•Collecting feedback on the needs of dyslexic students through a focus group helped to inform tutor guidelines.

•Raising staff awareness on the impact of specific disorders and strategies to help improve learner performance was well received.

•Creating picture based student Help sheets has proved popular with relevant student services staff.

•Researching ASD through visits and discussions with the National Autistic Society Prospects was invaluable and led to an effective working partnership.

•Developing a workshop proposal for a Blue Skies Thinking Disability Conference at Cambridge, based on the project was accepted.

Challenges faced

•Researching ASD was far more complex and time consuming than researching Dyslexia and disproportionate to the numbers in each group.

•Pressure from the university to develop materials with a wider teaching and learning application.

•Professional debates about the balance between supporting students with difficulties and empowering students through guidance were on-going.

•Lack of comparative disability practice to benchmark project against.

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Main lessons learnt •Adapted materials and tailored approaches can help students with

specific difficulties achieve more successful CMS outcomes whilst maintaining positive levels of self esteem.

•Often ASD students benefit from individually designed assessment methods that use supported methods to achieve learning outcomes. For example a careers interview could be used instead of writing a personal profile.

•Presentation and structuring of information (verbal, visual and written) is crucial for assisting Dyslexics.

•Training staff directly through group presentations can be more effective than a stand-alone written guide.

•Producing materials with a broader appeal can help raise disability awareness and good practice to a wider audience.

Possible future developments•Further embedding of materials and approaches as well as feedback is

needed to provide a fuller evaluation of the project’s outcomes.

•Research into the transition from university to employment would help to inform future CMS developments around work with disabled students.

•Addressing mental health issues would provide a useful second stage project.

Resources available


•Help sheets.

•PowerPoint presentation on Disability and Employment.

•Recommendations/Guide for CMS staff.

•Disability Work Placement Pack.

Contact details


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Evaluating PDP and CMS through the iLearn project, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Sarah Morey, Learning Support Manager, Centre for the Development of Teaching and Learning (CDoTL)

Key wordsCareers Management Skills (CMS), Personal Development Planning (PDP), iLearn, Blackboard, first year students, engagement

SummaryThis one year Fellowship primarily aimed to evaluate how PDP through the University’s iLearn pilot could dovetail with other initiatives to enhance the student experience. A central theme was to link PDP with CMS and encourage students to see the value of the PDP process in terms of their own career development. Engaging students in the process as well as developing a useful, flexible PDP tool via Blackboard were key tasks in the project. Four first year cohorts (a total of 360 students) were chosen from Pharmacy, Construction Management & Engineering, History and Social Work to take part in the newly created electronic PDP system (known as iLearn) from October 2007. Development work included: building four school based iLearn areas on the Blackboard site; populating the areas with text; providing tailored, subject specific text; adding links to Destinations®; encouraging schools to add their own resources to an iWork area, e.g., placement information; and providing regular, timely updates to the site to ‘keep it fresh.’ Engaging students was achieved through a range of publicity drives including coloured postcards, posters, pens, six promotional sessions during Freshers’ Week and weekly drop-in support. A handbook for all staff was produced to encourage staff to promote PDP further. Student and staff surveys and focus groups generated in-depth data and feedback and were reported upon in detail. Much of the CCMS funding was used for dissemination purposes and allowed the Fellow (and her colleagues) to share information, develop ideas further and engage in useful dialogue, both at Reading and across the wider higher education community.

Aspects that worked well •Running sessions on PDP/iLearn during Freshers’ Week worked well

and was particularly well attended by Construction Management and Pharmacy.

•Collecting feedback through surveys and focus groups generated quality data and allowed the Fellow to evaluate the success of the iLearn pilots by subject area. (See resources)

•Analysing feedback results confirmed that students had made the connection between PDP and their own career development. ‘Students expressed clearly that they recognise the longer term benefits of engag-ing with iLearn.’ Interim report on iLearn pilots. ‘Students get that this is useful to them…’ Sarah Morey.

•Convincing the University of the need for a temporary PDP development officer post was enhanced through this Fellowship and led to a funded one year post.

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• Developing school specific iLearn areas was supported by some schools having their own teaching and learning staff who were able to dedicate resources to this.

• Allowing staff to develop their skills and knowledge in using Blackboard more flexibly.

Challenges faced• Providing student training sessions during Freshers’ Week (delivered

by CDoTL staff) was resource intensive and is now unrealistic, given current staffing levels and student numbers involved.

• Encouraging careers staff and academics to make the most in their own practice of iLearn as a PDP tool requires on-going promotion of the resource and regular dialogue.

Main lessons learnt •The Fellowship enabled the University to review its PDP provision

and how this might link to other wider employability and personal development initiatives and resources in the future.

•iLearn provides tremendous potential to bring together related initia-tives and resources to support the PDP process including the Personal Tutor system, Study Advisers, CAS as well as other university web based careers resources.

•Encouraging academic staff to promote PDP to students is vital to its success. ‘Staff have to get behind it…and talk it up.’ Sarah Morey. Having academic staff in attendance at student training sessions and providing support materials can assist in this process.

•PDP/iLearn needs to be ‘officially sanctioned’ in order to encourage take-up and wider student engagement, i.e., it needs to be presented as a programme requirement.

•Staff and students require on-going support in order to actively engage with PDP/iLearn.

Possible future developments•There are now 28 iLearn subject areas. Help Guides have been produced

and the content of iLearn has been further improved.

•Further development of PDP/iLearn is anticipated through stronger links with University led employability initiatives in the future.

•The development of institution led student learning outcomes could provide further opportunities for PDP/iLearn to be embedded in the student learning experience.

•Current work with the Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR) 2009 trial provides further opportunities to link PDP/iLearn develop-ments and raise its profile.

•Further work on how PDP can be used to showcase good practice and joined-up thinking is needed. This would be beneficial to both academic schools and support services such as Careers and Study Advice.

Resources available


•Access to iLearn site – via the Fellow

•Promotional materials – via the Fellow

•Evaluation Reports – via the Fellow

•Staff Handbook – via the Fellow

Contact details


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Research Staff Career Profiling Project, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Dr Justin Hutchence, Project Officer, Centre for Staff Training and Development

Key wordsContract Researchers, career paths, job seeking, outside academia, employability

SummaryThis project aimed to gather qualitative data about the career paths, experiences and attitudes of research staff at Reading. The data was collected primarily through telephone interviews and some online ques-tionnaires with 18 research staff after they had completed their research contracts. The data collected was used to: i) evaluate contract staff support arrangements; ii) establish a resource for job hunting advice/strategies for current and future researchers; iii) develop a contact database of research staff and potential employers. The project was set in the context that little previous work had been undertaken on destinations of research staff, and unlike research students, a national survey (e.g. DLHE/AGCAS) does not exist. The project drew on existing research into the career develop-ment needs of research staff, namely the external Report produced by G. Roberts in 20021. Consultation with Vitae (the national body for PhD students and post doctoral research staff) enabled the project to dovetail its work alongside national developments (e.g., Vitae portal develop-ments) and gain expertise and advice on question design. Interviews were conducted by the Careers Advisory Service’s (CAS) careers adviser with the caseload for research staff. The questions used were around destinations, job hunting experiences and strategies, University support for researchers and advice to other researchers. The information and insights gained has been widely disseminated and is being used to inform: potential future research into the career paths of research staff; information and advice resources to current and future research staff; enhancements to careers support arrangements for research staff.

Aspects that worked well •Collecting data from interviews confirmed that research staff want hard

information about the career options available, and felt unsure about opportunities outside academia, in particular. ‘I think it’s a really good idea to do this survey … there are too many unrealistic and high expec-tations about prospects among researchers and lack of knowledge about all the options available.’ Research staff quote from Final Report.

•Collecting data through interviews with past researchers provides a good system of providing tangible, real life information on career paths for research staff. ‘It makes it a reality …’ said Justin Hutchence.

•Research staff welcomed the interest taken in them by the University and had useful suggestions about job hunting to pass on to others.

•Most past researchers agreed to remain in contact with the University and help future researchers with job seeking advice, if they could.

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•The integrated approach to providing support to contract research staff with input from academics, staff development, CAS and contact with past researchers and employers was welcomed by those interviewed.

•Information and insights gained through the project have been used to enhance careers support, e.g., Contract Research Career Management courses; Careers Service led courses for research staff.

•The project’s work and outcomes received positive feedback at the Vitae national Conference in September 2009.

Challenges faced•Locating past research staff contacts for interview was initially

difficult due to the lack of dedicated data. This was resolved by using other means, e.g., University Human Resources database and locating Principal Investigators (research co-ordinators) initially.

•Continuing the project and adding value to the results gained will largely depend on future funding (internal and external) and institu-tional priorities.

Main lessons learnt •Providing evidence based information on the career paths of research

staff can add potential value to the career development and experience of staff.

•Adding to data collection longer term is vital to maintaining the cur-rency of the information/advice provided and developing the resource further.

•Data collected confirmed that the majority (2/3) of those interviewed had made deliberate decisions to leave academia, reconfirming the informa-tion needs of this group around options outside of higher education.

•Supporting research staff to develop and assess their skills is crucial and Universities need to develop effective tools to measure their employ-ability as well as the impact of support and professional development programmes.

•Many researchers (especially scientists) felt that opportunities outside academia were sometimes considered as an inferior alternative to aca-demic careers by academics and that there was apathy or even prejudice about these career opportunities. They felt strongly that this was some-thing that should be addressed within the University.

Possible future developments•The results of the project have already been made available through

the Vitae website and will also be displayed on Reading’s own staff intranet site.

•The potential exists for a second stage broader project, focusing on a lon-gitudinal survey aimed at tracking career expectations at the start and end of contracts and measuring these against subsequent careers. This could be developed to inform future work around the employability of research staff.

•Research Staff case studies are planned for inclusion on the CAS’s website.

1. G. Roberts (2002) SET for Success

Resources available


•Final Report plus Appendices

Contact details


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Researching employer enhancement of the curriculum, University of ReadingCCMS Fellow Julie Rees: Industrial Placement Manager, School of Systems Engineering

Key wordsTeaching, Learning, Employers, Employability

SummaryThe project aimed to identify the interaction between employer engagement and teaching across the range of subjects at the Univer-sity of Reading. The project was commissioned by CCMS and involved joint working between the CCMS and the Fellow. The objectives were twofold; i) to promote and encourage the use of employer engagement in teaching and learning, through identifying detailed examples of good practice and, ii) to indirectly influence university strategy around working with employers and employability. To achieve this, the project involved research on specific employer engagement examples across the university, culminating in the publication of a good practice booklet. This provided eight examples of where employer engagement had enhanced the teaching and learning of students. A report to university management outlining key findings and recommendations followed. A Toolkit is now under development which will provide a practical guide for academics and other staff engaged in developing employer links.

Aspects that worked well •Interviewing academics proved a very popular and insightful approach

– there was a great willingness to get involved and many went outside normal expectations to take part in the study.

•Enabling academics to recognise the value, benefits (to students and the department) and possibilities that working with employers provides.

•Enabling staff to forge links with other academic departments to share practice around employer engagement.

•Researching case studies generated an interesting array of examples, e.g., industry in the classroom (with O2 teaching on a marketing module) and employer mentoring.

•Using a research project in a research-led university received a positive reaction from senior staff and the wider higher education community.

Challenges faced•Driving the project’s aims and intended outcomes within the univer-

sity’s developing policy and financial environment proved complex.

•Finding sufficient numbers of diverse examples of good practice in active employer engagement was challenging.

Main lessons learnt •Connecting employers to the curriculum has the potential to enhance

teaching and learning in general as well as for employability.

•There are many varied ways for schools to engage with employers, providing flexibility and choice for schools to find the right pattern for their context.

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•The project demonstrated the enormous scope for well motivated academics to contribute talents, skills and insights into employability work.

•There is considerable potential for examples of good practice to be embedded elsewhere, but future developments will benefit from being facilitated by a university wide strategy endorsed by senior management.

Possible future developments•The Toolkit could be used to assist schools, perhaps as part of the

Periodic Review Process, in considering how they might enhance their employer work.

•There is scope for a comparative benchmarking study of employer engagement activities across other universities to be undertaken.

Resources available


•Employer Engagement Toolkit (includes research findings and case studies)

•PowerPoint presentations to Faculty Directors of Teaching and Learning

•Reports/Papers to SMT

•Articles in Teaching Matters and Phoenix

Contact details


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External Destinations® pilots

Destinations® pilot at University of BirminghamCCMS Fellows Sophie Miller, Deputy Director of Careers & Employability Service

Joan Cartledge, Development & Learning Consultant, Careers & Employ-ability Service

Key wordsDestinations®, employability, online career development learning, career management skills (CMS), delivery models, Personal Development Planning (PDP), international students

Summary

This Fellowship aimed to introduce Destinations® to the University of Birmingham to support its employability strategy and developments to enhance opportunities for online career development learning. It was anticipated that the pilot would provide increased opportunities to engage with academic departments over CMS developments as well as providing an evaluation of models used in order to inform and influence University wide developments. The project set out to pilot Destinations® in three distinct ways over a two year period; i) as an independent career learning tool accessed outside the academic curriculum, primarily through a Personal Skills Award (PSA) module Career Planning, ii) as a careers education curriculum resource embedded through targeted academic disciplines, including Physics (careers tutorials) and Theology (post placement module), and, iii) as part of a Personal Development Planning (PDP) process with a group of international students. Other objectives included a comparison exercise with the University’s current on-line PDP tool known as ‘Progress’ to identify how the two resources might complement each other and contribute to improving the employability of international students. The project achieved all its objectives and led to other useful developments taking place. In total, around 460 students took part across the three strands of the project.

Aspects that worked well •Providing opportunities to experiment with using Destinations®

through a planned project led structure allowed the University to consider the merits of different delivery models and how these might influence future CMS developments.

•Evaluating Destinations® led to some redesign of the University’s ‘Progress’ PDP tool based on the Destinations® style of web presentation, e.g., the ‘Skills’ layout in particular influenced the revised skills section of the PDP resource.

•Using the personality assessment tools on Destinations® (located in the ‘YOU’ section) enhanced the content of the PSA careers module.

•Using Destinations® to deliver presentations, central workshops and to write materials/handouts is popular with careers service staff.

•Sharing information and approaches with other university colleagues worked well through local collaboration, AGCAS and CCMS events. ‘There was a great willingness to share.’ – Joan Cartledge

external destinations ®

pilots

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•Working with the University’s Learning Development Unit improved opportunities to promote CMS and engage with academics and students across the Desti-nations® projects.

•Collecting feedback from staff and students using Destinations® provided some useful insights. Gener-ally, both groups liked the video clips, exercises and CV examples in particular. Some students disliked the amount of text in places and the complexities of navigating the site.

•Learning from the pilot with international students (through PDP) allowed the University to identify more precisely the career needs of this group and to develop career learning programmes accordingly, particularly around the importance of transferable skills awareness.

Challenges faced•Engaging academics in CMS initiatives remains

difficult.

•There is limited access to Destinations® as this is not networked across the University at present. Access is through the Careers Centre only.

•Staff changes in the IT technical team at the Univer-sity caused some delays in installation and support at the start of the project.

•The technical challenges delayed the progress of the project and caused problems for students trying to access Destinations® off campus, eventually resolved by additional IT staff support.

Main lessons learnt •The project helped identify that international stu-

dents needed extra support around identifying and developing transferable skills. This led to the develop-ment of high quality videos providing inspiring role models. These have been added to the Destinations® website and will be made available to other HEIs in due course.

•Using video clips to communicate careers advice to students is an extremely powerful way of getting key messages across. The service has introduced video clips to its own website as well as making greater use of this facility in workshop/seminar delivery.

•Linking Destinations® to the careers service website provides a further way of embedding and promot-ing career learning resources. This is achieved more effectively when Destinations® is deep-linked to par-ticular career themes on the service’s website.

•Increasing the scope to use web-based resources pro-vides careers staff with greater flexibility and choice in delivering one-to-one sessions and group work.

•Comparisons between the ‘Progress’ tool with Desti-nations® highlighted the need for online tools to be attractive to students and has informed recent design improvements to the University’s web based PDP tool. ‘Destinations®, visually, is very powerful.’ – Joan Cartledge

•Engaging academics and students can be improved when other services and senior management teams ‘champion’ and support CMS developments univer-sity wide.

•The Destinations® projects have contributed to a now higher profile employability strategy. Measur-ing the impact and influence precisely is, however, problematic. Careers staff assessing student reflective essays (on skills) from the PSA careers module report that it is clear that students are learning some key messages about employability.

Possible future developments•Transferring lessons learnt from Destinations® con-

tinues as the PDP ‘Progress’ tool is developed further, through incorporating more media into its presenta-tion.

•The employability strategy supported by career devel-opment learning initiatives continue to develop in the light of lessons learnt from the Destinations® pilot.

•An ‘Employability Module’ is currently under devel-opment to support these initiatives.

Resources available


•Work experience DVD

Contact details


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Destinations® pilot at University of BradfordCCMS FellowHermione Berry, Career Development Adviser, Career Development Services, University of Bradford

Key wordsDestinations®, careers modules, self directed study, e-learning, placement preparation, PDP(PebblePAD), guidance interventions, action plan stickers, website developments, staff engagement and development

SummaryThis Fellowship primarily aimed to link Destinations® to the delivery of well established accredited careers modules to Year 2 and 3 students across a range of academic disciplines. The main focus of the Fellow-ship was to use the site to support teaching and learning. It was also anticipated that Destinations® would be used broadly through guidance interventions and workshops and be accessible to students through the Career Development Service’s (CDS) website, careers information room and the University’s VLE (Blackboard) site. Additional objectives included a pilot trial of Destinations® with international and MBA students as well as consideration of other ways to embed Destinations® in curriculum based delivery. The project ran for two academic years. Overall, the project achieved more than expected, with additional outcomes achieved over and above the original project plan.

Aspects that worked well •Linking careers modules to the Destinations® site from the VLE (Black-

board) site enabled students to access resource material to support their research and assignment activities. In several modules, this is now extensive with the use of specific deep links.

•Adapting downloadable material from Destinations® helped to source teaching and learning materials for workshops, modules and self directed study unit/s, e.g., skills worksheets.

•Designing curriculum resources that are integrated with assignment activities and marking criteria provided ready-made packages that staff can easily use, e.g., Pharma Assignment Package.

•Customising Destinations® allowed the site to be more relevant to Bradford students, e.g., adapting home page, signposting to University support services, adding relevant resources, adapted exercises and links.

•Using video clips of Bradford students and employers helped the site feel more appropriate to the local context as well as reinforcing important messages on employability. Six full quality video clips were produced in-house; three were shared with other Universities using Destinations®. Many staff now use selected video clips from Destinations® to enhance their teaching sessions.

•Replacing the original Destinations® logo (plane image) with a new logo was considered to be more in tune with the University’s ‘Ecoversity strat-egy.’ The new logo was successfully generated through a competition for students and with subsequent design input from the University’s in-house design team.


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•Using Destinations® in guidance interventions was enhanced through the use of stickers (includes logo and website) on action plans. This reminds both careers advisers and students of the site in relation to spe-cific career planning issues.

•Providing deep links to Destinations® on the CDS’s website helped staff and students access specific information more effectively.

•Disseminating information about Destinations® to the wider academic community was achieved through the University’s annual Learning, Teaching & Assessment Conference as well as internal groups, e.g., Progress Files and Placements Forum groups.

•Using Destinations® to support placement preparation received a posi-tive response from some placement staff. Destinations® is now linked to subject based intranet placement sites across the University.

•Using Destinations® to support PDP was achieved through linking rel-evant forms/exercises and adapting these for use with the University’s PDP system, known as PebblePAD. Students can save completed exercises in their e-portfolio.

•Using Destinations® to assist in the development of self directed study unit/s (to replace a careers module taught session) through e-learning software (Course Genie/Wimba Create) was innovative and provided further development opportunities for staff.

•Communicating with CCMS and other pilot colleagues worked well. ‘CCMS always gave full answers and support to any issues raised.’ ‘The Google Groups were good – an online way of sharing information…’ – Hermione Berry

•Introducing Destinations® to the CAS’s portfolio ‘had a huge impact on careers colleagues.’ It impacted on staff in several ways including; personal development, teaching practice, use of video clips, up-skilling in IT, developing e-learning resources and using different approaches to engage students. ‘It made them rethink their resources and their use of blended learning techniques…’ – Hermione Berry

•Collecting feedback from a range of user groups has been extensive and has helped to shape the direction of the project. Regular and timely feedback throughout the project has been sought from staff and stu-dents using a range of evaluation methods. Generally, the site has been well received by users, with some useful ideas for developments received as part of this process.

•Seeking the views of the External Examiner (for the careers modules) on Destinations® as a teaching and learning resource was a useful way of engaging with the wider Teaching and Learning agenda at the Uni-versity. ‘Another encouraging feature is the planned use of Destinations; this site includes a range of learning artefacts encompassing audio, visual and interactive exercises. It is likely to enhance access to learning opportunities and its potential for customisation to the needs of Bradford students is another positive element.’ (Annual External Examiner’s Report 2007/8)

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Challenges faced•The initial response to Destinations® from the careers team at Bradford

was mixed. Some showed a reluctance to recognise its potential. ‘It’s just another website…’ The leadership commitment, persuasion and support provided by the Fellow, as well as provision of dedicated training have now changed staff perception of the site and its value. ‘Staff are with me now.’ – Hermione Berry

•A steep learning curve was experienced by many careers staff. Driving the project forward required time and personal commitment. Some staff also expressed concern about the perceived IT skills requirements for the project. Investment in staff training and support increased staff awareness, confidence and skills in this respect. ‘There was a lot of learning for all of us…’ – Hermione Berry. Training included CCMS led training, one-to-one sessions/support and other specific training around e-learning/Wimba Create, PDP/PebblePAD, VLE (Blackboard) and advanced PowerPoint.

•A lack of dedicated technical/website expertise was problematic during the project and, in practice, relied heavily on the goodwill of other Uni-versity colleagues.

•Initial technical problems around installation/servers affected time-frames during the first year of the project.

•Engaging wider academic interest in the use of Destinations® as a cur-riculum resource has been limited to date. The project team is aware of only one academic member of staff who has actively linked to Destina-tions® from their Blackboard site.

Main lessons learnt •Developing Destinations® as an online career development learning tool

can assist careers staff to extend their teaching practice, consider new delivery methods and improve IT skills.

•Embedding Destinations® in modules can be achieved in different ways, e.g., direct class based delivery, adapted resources and assignments, VLE developments, website links and through e-learning.

•Demonstrating Destinations® during group delivery can be more effective if students can observe the website as a whole, rather than migrating isolated extracts/clips as part of PowerPoint presentations. It also encourages students to explore other topics and sections.

•Dedicated technical IT/website support is essential for updating and maintaining Destinations® as a University owned resource.

•Engaging and motivating staff to use Destinations® broadly and innova-tively is a continuous process that requires commitment and dedication.

•Introducing Destinations® requires sufficient time for staff to become familiar with the new resource if it is to be fully integrated into modules and other delivery methods.

•There are some simple ways in which Destinations® can be interlinked with other University resources, e.g., intranet sites for PDP and place-ment support.

•Using student feedback on Destinations® can help to influence staff perception and inform future career developments.


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•Destinations® can contribute to the overall employability of students in conjunction with other careers interventions, particularly for already motivated students.

Possible future developments•Two staff are currently studying for the ‘Postgraduate Certificate in

Higher Education Practice’ which includes e-learning. The use of Des-tinations® by staff in developing careers units through e-learning has influenced this aspect of their personal development.

•Experience of the Destinations® pilot project has encouraged CDS to pursue other external bids and projects.

•Greater use and prominence of deep links to Destinations® on the VLE (Blackboard) site is planned to further support careers modules and to make the resource more student focused.

•More e-learning developments are planned, following fuller evaluation of the current careers units developed. A dedicated e-learning careers module would be ideal, but requires more development time/resources than currently available.

•Continuous staff training and support will be essential to the future success of Destinations®.

•Future updating of Destinations® remains an on-going issue. The Uni-versity feels strongly that it ‘must be retained and developed.’ – Hermione Berry

Resources available


•Quarterly Reports (x3)

•Feedback Reports – staff, students and focus groups

•PowerPoint Presentations

•Pharma Assessment Materials (recruitment assignment)

Contact details


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Destinations® pilot at Cornwall CollegeCCMS Fellow Kathleen Pope, Careers & Progression Adviser, Student Services, Cornwall College, Camborne

Key wordsDestinations®, Foundation degree students, Career Management Skills, Professional Development Module, academics, VLE

SummaryThis Fellowship aimed to pilot Destinations® in a college of further and higher education, primarily focusing on first year Foundation degree (FD) students. The original pilot plan included ten FD courses and one HNC. In reality, eight FD courses were included in the scope of the project’s duration. Destinations® was used as a resource to help deliver Career Management Skills (CMS) to FD students through the 20 credit Profes-sional Development Modules (PDM) embedded in most FD courses. By doing so, it aimed to improve the content and consistency of careers education to this group, which previously had caused concern. It was envisaged that the evaluation from the pilot would inform the College of the potential of Destinations® as a college-wide resource. The Fellow was solely responsible for the initial promotion, implementation and delivery of Destinations® through taught CMS sessions in courses, with the aim of tutors taking up this role in the longer term. Up to four sessions were delivered through the PDMs covering; skills and employability, employ-ment, CVs/applications and interviewing techniques.

Aspects that worked well •Using Destinations® provided a springboard for engaging with tutors,

primarily because it was a teaching and learning resource that could be used within the existing VLE.

•Identifying a suitable vehicle for delivering CMS through the PDM pro-vided a clear rationale and conducive ‘home’ for career learning to take place.

•Introducing Destinations® to tutors generated a positive response. Some started using it with their students after just one introductory meeting.

•Raising the profile of CMS and employability through the promotion of Destinations® has led to curriculum change within FD programmes. ‘The main success of Destinations® has been the impact on PDM and staff wanting to use it … in fact, staff are already using it …’ Kathleen Pope

•Additional courses are being brought on-board during 2009–2010.

•Using Destinations® in other ways added value to the work of the careers advisory service (CAS), e.g., in one-to-one interventions, as a self help resource and in individual Personal Development Planning.

•Accessing the Google Groups proved invaluable particularly in respect of the free resources and downloads. Example lesson plans have been par-ticularly welcomed.

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•Customising Destinations® enabled the College to provide additional, relevant resources including links to local and regional websites as well as student CV downloads by subject area.

•Involving IT students to help install and customise Destinations® was invaluable and beneficial to both students and the CAS.

•Destinations® provides further resource support for tutors. Feedback indicates that staff are finding the curriculum materials that accompany Destinations® very useful.

•Using the knowledge of the Fellow in working with FD students con-tributed to the development of bespoke pages and video clips on the Destinations® website for this group.

Challenges faced•Finding and engaging the right programme contact at the beginning of

the pilot was sometimes difficult. In practice, the tutor delivering the PDM was often the most appropriate contact.

•There were some technical installation problems at the start of the project, eventually resolved by internal IT staff.

Main lessons learnt •PDMs provide a good route to deliver CMS, given that these feature in

most FD degrees.

•Due to the sole responsibility the Fellow has for higher education careers advice, the Fellowship provided a valuable means of professional devel-opment. The Fellow benefits from using the Destinations® site, being part of a wider community, being involved in curriculum developments and learning from student feedback. It has also helped to inform her Masters Degree as well as improving her web editing skills.

•Student feedback has emphasised that FD students are far from a uniform group. Indeed their views and career learning needs are highly diverse.

•Lessons learnt from evaluation exercises include; i) the need for regular student reminders about Destinations® and how to access specific links; ii) the role of tutors in continually promoting Destina-tions® to students; iii) the importance of undertaking an initial CMS audit in courses to avoid duplicate delivery of themes; iv) the importance of timing and student motivation – some students didn’t appreciate the relevance of CMS and Destinations® until their work placements or later in their courses.

•Experience of delivering Destinations® and CMS through PDM has led to some recent changes to suit course requirements more closely, includ-ing modifications to course content and the numbers of sessions offered.

•Having a teaching and learning resource like Destinations® is a useful way of strengthening the credibility of the CAS to engage with academ-ics and the curriculum.

•Implementing Destinations® through CMS requires investment of time and effort, particularly at the beginning to ensure that content and materials complement course content elsewhere.

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Possible future developments•Integrating Destinations® with a College based website is under

consideration.

•A College wide Task Group is currently considering curriculum development/change to the PDM in all FD courses. It is likely that this will include the use of Destinations® in the delivery of CMS and build on the lessons learnt from the pilot.

•It is anticipated that tutors will deliver CMS taught sessions using Destinations® which will serve to strengthen the wider community of careers educators and broaden the bases of careers education.

•Further interest has been expressed by other courses wishing to embed CMS and Destinations® into their courses.

•A link is being developed for distance learners and those on short HE courses so that they have access to the excellent information when making decisions about progression on to a full or part-time FD.

•The Fellow is currently working with CCMS to develop case studies to capture the strategies that small CAS might use to overcome the effects of limited resources.

Resources available


•PowerPoint Presentations

•Lesson Plans

•CMS materials

Contact details


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Destinations® pilot at University of LimerickCCMS Fellow

Mary Sweeney, Head of Careers, Cooperative Education & Careers Division, University of Limerick

Key words

Destinations®, Irish students, Irish employers, video clips, interdis-ciplinary project group, placement support, Irish higher education community, community of practice

Summary

This Fellowship primarily aimed to use Destinations® to develop a customised career learning resource for Irish students. In particular, it aimed to use the resource to support career development modules and tutorials with a pilot group of Business Studies and Humanities students. It was also intended to use the resource with other University students through central workshops and website delivery. Other objec-tives included; the enhancement of placement preparation and reflection through tailored materials added to Destinations®; assessing the potential of Destinations® to meet the needs of other student groups including international, mature and postgraduate students; to disseminate the project’s outcomes to the Irish higher education community. The project was led by the Fellow and supported by an interdisciplinary project team.

Aspects that worked well •Managing the project’s direction and progress through an interdisci-

plinary project team proved to be a highly effective way of driving the project forward. The team was made up of key representatives including academics, students, Teaching & Learning, careers staff, a college repre-sentative and an IT/web co-ordinator. The project benefited enormously from the shared expertise and commitment of the team as well as providing opportunities for individual professional development. ‘This has been the first truly interdisciplinary project initiated by the careers service and has been a positive learning experience…’ – Mary Sweeney

•Adding Irish based video clips of employers, work placement and post-graduate students was highly effective and allowed students to identify more closely with Destinations® and its contents. Prior to this, students had felt ‘distanced’ by the dominance of English accents (through videos) and information relating to non Irish graduate employment. ‘I like the fact that they feature Irish employers. Hearing them speak has more impact than reading text.’ (Student)

•Engaging employers to take part in the customisation of Destinations® was successfully achieved by using Careers Fair contacts. Filming was combined with the event and generated a positive response from employers.

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•Customising Destinations® through the addition of Irish video clips (around 90 clips in 120 locations on the site), icons, links, statistics and other relevant resources broadened the appeal of the website to students, staff and the wider higher education community, ‘…the information has more credibility with Irish students.’ ‘It gave us more of a brand’ said Mary Sweeney. Fifteen other HEIs have bought Destinations® from CCMS and have subsequently been given access to Limerick’s Irish version of Destinations®.

•Installing Destinations® in its original format was straightforward. There was comprehensive technical documentation provided with Destinations® detailing system requirements, installation and editing guides. Instructions placed on the Pilot Google Group were clear and easy to follow. If customisation is required however, greater IT expertise is needed.

•Collaborating with other pilot colleagues through CCMS events was valuable and enabled the Fellow to consider other developments, e.g., use of podcasts, Advice Pages, etc. ‘The meetings were lively, well structured with lots of activity and opportunities for development.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Using IT students (MSc in Technical Communications) to conduct a ‘Usa-bility Survey’ on Destinations® was a highly effective way of engaging students and obtaining useful feedback.

•Using Destinations® is popular with students and staff. Recent web-based statistics (October 2009) suggest that the Destinations® site (on the UL website) attracts some 440 unique visitors and over 50,000 hits per month during the academic term. University led research found that ‘students really like the CV section of the website, assessment centres and video clips.’ (Staff) ‘It is very interesting to read, easy to navigate and with lots of useful resources such as videos from prospective employ-ers. I really liked the resources that allow you to evaluate your work style and personality type. Also, the section on building CVs and Cover Letters, and Interview Preparation are really useful. I recommended it to a friend of mine who is currently preparing a CV, and also to another friend who is thinking of doing a Masters.’ (Student)

•Disseminating the project’s outcomes to the Irish higher education com-munity was facilitated through GCI (Graduate Careers Ireland). This included personal demonstrations, presentations at the GCI biennial conference and participation in a Destinations® training programme (with Reading) for Irish careers services interested in learning about this resource. This has associated the University with innovation and best practice in providing an Irish online career development learning tool.

•Working with Teaching and Learning and academics was a positive experience. ‘This initiative has strengthened the relationship between the Careers Service and academic departments and has highlighted our common objectives.’ – Mary Sweeney

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•Promoting of Destinations® at every opportunity was vital to its success. The University achieved this through linking Destinations® on its careers website, branded posters on notice boards and in careers service publications, emails, fliers, handouts and on PowerPoint presentations. The introduction of a web card using the strap line ‘Destinations® …the best online career planning resource’ is a flexible way of promoting the resource widely to students.

•Destinations® has prompted a more technologically innovative approach to careers work and has helped move careers into the curricu-lum. ‘Destinations® has acted as a catalyst in stimulating the careers service to be more adventurous in using technology in the delivery of services to reach a wider population of students…it prompted us to start using a VLE as a teaching resource for our Career Development module.’

Challenges faced•Customising Destinations® was a time consuming process and required

scrutiny of every page of the website in order to make amendments.

•Integrating Destinations® into the careers service’s website has raised some access and authentication issues for students not registered at the University, e.g., recent graduates.

•Merging the second release of Destinations® (Destinations® 2.0) with the first was not anticipated and, again, was time consuming.

•Producing Irish video clips was not included in the original project plan and contributed to an additional work load but, again, proved to be a worthwhile investment.

•Uploading documents to the Google Groups was sometimes difficult due to unfamiliarity with using this medium.

Main lessons learnt •The use of video clips is a positive feature of Destinations® and differen-

tiates it from many other careers websites.

•Producing video clips in-house requires extensive editing and is time consuming. In hindsight, this needed more of a planned approach. An alternative to this might be to commission an outside provider to under-take this work. ‘For any services planning to create their own local video clips, I would strongly recommend that they plan this process very care-fully and avoid some of the initial problems we encountered.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Using the expertise of an in-house IT/web professional is invaluable, par-ticularly in relation to additional video clips and website amendments. ‘We could not have done this without the IT expertise we had.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Destinations® can be a popular resource for preparing and supporting students on placements. The sections on Work Experience and Skills as well as the addition of video clips of students on placement provide useful teaching and learning resources.

•Destinations® can be effectively adapted to meet the needs of interna-tional students.

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•Destinations® impacts across all aspects of career learning and can be effectively used to support modules, workshops, tutorials, placement preparation, careers interviews, assignments and individual research.

•Destinations® can impact positively on the overall employability of students, particularly when combined with structured careers manage-ment skills input and/or support. ‘It gives more weight to what careers advisers say.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Student use of Destinations® is greatly improved with direction to the relevant sections. This can be facilitated by the use of deep links on materials/own website as well as careers adviser knowledge of its contents. ‘Although some students will be attracted by the flexibility of the website and will use a ‘pick and mix’ approach, some direction will greatly improve the effectiveness of this resource.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Student engagement in Destinations® requires continuous promotion and can be achieved by using a broad and innovative range of publicity methods. ‘Our experience reinforced the importance of promoting Des-tinations® at every possible opportunity so that students identify it as the preferred careers resource.’ – Mary Sweeney

•Multidisciplinary project teams are essential to the success of a univer-sity wide e-learning initiative.

•Key success factors of this particular Destinations® project were the Fellow’s personal drive, strategic vision and ability to influence career developments within her institution as well as her high profile and cred-ibility within the GCI community.

Possible future developments•Greater integration of Destinations® with careers service website

including use of deep links.

•Integration into the University’s VLE.

•Improving ease of access to non registered users.

•Updating Destinations® – Irish context.

•Proposed article for the GCI Newsletter.

•Developing own Advice Pages.

Resources available


•PowerPoint presentations

•Assignment guidelines

Contact details


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Destinations® pilot at Roehampton UniversityCCMS Fellows Dr Eddie Tunnah, Deputy Director of Student Services and Head of Careers & Gill Harvey, Careers Adviser, Roehampton University

Key wordsDestinations®, career management skills, group work, one-to-one interviews, careers advisory service website, online career learning, academics, curriculum development

SummaryThis Fellowship primarily set out to use Destinations® to complement and upgrade existing career management skills (CMS) materials. Roehampton has used the Reading CMS materials since 2000 and viewed the Destina-tions® Pilot project as a way of improving and modernising these, whilst at the same time providing an opportunity to promote CMS more widely across the institution. Staff report that careers at Roehampton present some ongoing challenges, so the promotional aspect of Destinations® was seen to have some leverage in terms of potential CMS curriculum developments. The original project aimed to pilot Destinations® with three distinct groups including Cultural Studies, international students and students taking part in Personal Development Planning (PDP). In reality, the latter group proved difficult to access and some adjustments were made as the project progressed. In practice, Destinations® was used with around 80 2nd year Cultural Studies students on a work prepara-tion module; 12 international students on an MBA course; 7 international students taking part in a focus/market research group. It has also been used at careers events, e.g., ‘Land that Job’ with around 150 business studies students. In addition, the University has integrated Destinations® into its careers website, used Destinations® in careers interviews and taken part in writing five Advice Pages on behalf of CCMS. The latter is a resource to help students to navigate Destinations® more effectively in order to solve common career issues.

Aspects that worked well •Promoting Destinations® provided new opportunities to work with

students in a different way, especially through the focus groups.

•Collecting feedback from focus groups and individual students was thorough. Results from these exercises provided useful insights into preferred ways of learning and using Destinations® as an information tool. It re-confirmed lessons learnt about ‘Generation Y’ and the impor-tance of talking to students to find out what they want, e.g., they want information to be simple, quick and at the point of need. ‘Piloting Desti-nations®…encouraged us, as a service, to listen more to students about the way they like to learn, what they do and don’t find useful and how they want to take new information on board.’ – Gill Harvey

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•Meeting CCMS staff and other pilot colleagues through Conferences and Meetings has been enjoyable and beneficial. It provided opportuni-ties for professional development as well as informal benchmarking of service developments. ‘I enjoyed the collaborative nature of the Fellow-ship and the scope it gave to share and learn from other institutions…’ – Gill Harvey

•Using Destinations® has impacted on the following groups at the University:

•Careers staff: Most careers advisers now use Destinations® in their group work delivery, e.g., through demonstrations, PowerPoint presen-tations and signposting deep links for student research.

•Academics and other staff: It has added credibility to discussions about CMS with academics. ‘It’s tangible, not a concept that needs lengthy discussion… it gives immediate impact… staff can see how it can be used and run with it.’ – Gill Harvey

•Students: Feedback from students showed they liked Destinations® because: it’s in small chunks, is visual, simple to use, information in one place, helps those who are text averse and is quick. However, they do not necessarily distinguish it from other websites they currently access. ‘It’s what they expect… just another website… they instantly ‘normalise’ it.’ – Gill Harvey

•Institution: The pilot project added credibility to the CAS through additional funding, internal CMS developments and participation at national events. According to Gill Harvey, ‘It’s put Roehampton (Careers Service) on the map.’ However, the impact of Destinations® has yet to be fully realised institution wide. Staff consider that a tighter CMS strategic framework is needed to reap the full benefits of Destinations® in the longer term.

Challenges faced•Installing Destinations® at the start of the project raised some minor

technical difficulties; these were resolved by IT staff at Roehampton.

•Using the Google Groups to store information was a good idea but, in practice, difficult. Staff preferred informal and face to face meetings to exchange information with colleagues from other universities.

•University led changes in academic year structures delayed the Fellow-ship at the start of the project. These changes resulted in student contact time being concentrated between September and April and impacted on project timeframes and opportunities to access student groups.

Main lessons learnt •Ownership of a quality teaching and learning resource enabled the

CAS to reach out to the academic community and engage academics. ‘Destinations® proved an excellent vehicle for engaging teaching staff in issues around CMS…’ – Gill Harvey

•The project would have benefited from a committee structure at Roehampton to drive it. A steering group meeting regularly to track progress and drive the project forward may have improved planning processes and created a greater sense of co-operation.

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•Destinations® can be effectively used in other ways, e.g., in one to one guidance. Careers staff at Roehampton found the ‘YOU’ section a particularly useful tool for exploring self awareness with students.

•Linking Destinations® to the careers service’s website improved the strategic positioning of CAS across the institution as well as the service offered to students. ‘This site is extremely informative and helpful. Particularly, it gives you everything you need to know when looking, applying and interviewing for a job. You cannot really get this help else-where necessarily – what is good about this is that you can access advice from the careers department whenever you like, in your own time and it is very clear advice.’ (Student)

•Careers staff need time to familiarise themselves with Destinations® in order to use it confidently with students, but it is a worthwhile invest-ment in terms of practitioner development.

•Staff leading the Destinations® pilot report that the project has added value to the CAS as well as promoting a credible teaching and learning resource across the University. ‘The Fellowship has prompted a real refocusing of careers activity within our institution and encouraged us as a CAS towards remodelling our online presence…with Destinations® as the hub…it provided an impetus for some of our academic colleagues to revisit and revise their teaching materials…’ ‘…longer term I feel it will help ease the way for curriculum based initiatives with academic departments.’ – Gill Harvey

•The personal commitment of staff (in this case the Fellows) to creatively engage with student feedback can enliven a whole project and ensure that students remain central to a large scale e-learning project.

Possible future developments•Extending Destinations® beyond the original pilot groups is already

under discussion, e.g., Sport Science.

•It is anticipated that many work preparation modules will require resources to support their programmes in the future. Destinations® provides these plus increased opportunities for collaborative work between careers staff and academics.

•The potential exists for Roehampton specific Advice Pages to be developed.

Resources available



•CMS materials

Contact details


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Destinations® pilot at University of UlsterCCMS Fellow Dr Sharon Milner, Employability Development Officer, Career Develop-ment Centre, University of Ulster

Key words

Destinations®, UlsterGradNAV, Career Development Learning Framework, career entitlement, online career learning resource, employability, PDP

Summary

This Fellowship primarily aimed to use Destinations® to support a range of career learning delivery strategies used with six undergraduate programmes and a group of second year postgraduate students. The project coincided with other relevant initiatives including the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund Initiative (2007–2010). This provided the resources to develop employability as one of the core aims of Ulster’s Teaching and Learning Strategy linked to the development of a University wide Career Development Learning (CDL) Framework. The latter aimed to provide a student entitlement to careers education based on course years and benchmarking standards. Underpinning these initiatives was a commitment to develop sector leading, technically mediated services to support student employability. The Fellowship was multi faceted in its objectives and it was envisaged that Destinations® would impact posi-tively on a number of developments by: increasing the range of career learning opportunities for students, encouraging academic engagement in the career development/employability agenda, supporting career modules, Personal Development Planning (PDP) and work preparation activities, providing staff training and development opportunities, enhancing students’ employability skills and strengthening partnership agreements between the Career Development Centre and Faculties.

Aspects that worked well •Strategically using Destinations® to provide an online career develop-

ment learning resource through the development of UlsterGradNAV across the University. Destinations® is now the core resource for all CDL used by staff and students.

•Rebranding Destinations® to UlsterGradNAV raised its profile, gave it a local focus and avoided possible confusion with DHLE destinations statistics.

•Persuading academics to develop CDL within courses was made easier by highlighting the online resources/support available to them. Destina-tions® provided academics with ideas, lesson plans, instant resources and time savings. ‘Without Destinations®, it would have been difficult to drive the CDL framework forward.’ Dr. Sharon Milner

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•Providing academics with lesson materials simplified the process for developing CDL within courses. Six exemplar teaching plans with PowerPoint presentations were devised and uploaded on to Destina-tions® (also available through the Destinations® Community Google Group). These cover core areas including; interview skills, application forms, work experience, assessment centres, employability skills and career planning. A work experience toolkit can be accessed in the same way. Materials are all built around the use of Destinations®.

•Linking to Destinations® through a range of University IT based media has improved promotion and access. It is linked to the Career Develop-ment Centre’s website, the student portal, the online PDP (PDSystem) and the University’s VLE – WebCT.

•Customising Destinations® more closely to the needs of University of Ulster students made the website more comprehensive and relevant. Improvements included references and links to the Northern Ireland perspective, a new Industrial Placement Preparation section, use of own video clips and resources, adding AGCAS video material as well as further subject pages. The latter has been supported by additional Uni-versity funding (Centre for Higher Education Practice) for curriculum development work.

•Collecting extensive feedback from students, colleagues and academic staff generated positive responses. ‘It’s brilliant’ is the response received from most academics. ‘They like the fact that they can dip in and out of it and use it to shape their lectures.’ ‘Students find it refreshing, easy on the eye, not boring or off putting.’ ‘The videos are a real hit.’ – Dr. Sharon Milner

•Collecting feedback from students helped identify early problems with links and assisted in customisation.

•Communicating with CCMS and other pilot partners worked very well. Participation in meetings, training and accessing the Google Groups enabled pilot partners to ask questions, take part in discussions and share good practice. The Fellow was particularly proactive in this role and valued the experience gained.

•The commitment of the CDC team to employability, their capacity for undertaking e-learning projects, and the team’s long established involvement in teaching, coupled with the Fellow’s leadership and drive, contributed to the project being embedded within the wider work and on-going role of the service.

Challenges faced•Customising pages to incorporate the Northern Ireland perspective was

both time consuming and tedious. Destinations® would have benefited from a central content management system in order to facilitate this process more easily.

•The Career Development Centre faced some initial technical difficul-ties, particularly around user authentication. These were successfully resolved due to the expertise within CDC and support from CCMS’s web team.

•Broken links caused some early teething problems, but were responded to positively by CCMS.

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•Measuring the impact of Destinations® on employability is problematic, due to the lack of data and the fact that such impacts are likely to draw on the whole student experience rather than a single resource. Anecdo-tal evidence from students taking part in the pilot suggested however, that Destinations® did contribute to their employability. ‘Overall the site is beneficial to all university students in order to prepare them for leaving education and successfully getting a career of their choice. With good preparation and guidance a student will feel more confident for interviews etc.’ (Student)

Main lessons learnt •Implementing Destinations® as part of the University’s developing CDL

Framework and employability strategy was timely and instrumental to the Fellowship’s success.

•Destinations® helped to drive the University’s CDL Framework forward and encouraged Schools to get involved. Strategically, it has impacted significantly on the success of the CDL Framework with now 32 degree programmes using Destinations® to underpin career learning delivery.

•Using videos to communicate careers themes to students is an extremely powerful way of getting key messages across.

•Destinations® provides a rich and flexible teaching and learning resource that can be used in a wide range of degree disciplines.

•Destinations® can provide the core content for a CAS’s website and be integrated with other online tools, e.g., PDSystem.

•Creating adaptable lesson plans is a cost effective way of enabling a large team of careers staff to develop consistent approaches to careers education delivery and using Destinations® at the same time.

Possible future developments•New marketing materials have been produced in the form of fliers and

posters to further promote Destinations®.

•Raising the profile of Destinations through Conferences (e.g., ‘Innova-tions in Supporting Students into Employment’) has already proved worthwhile. A similar Conference is planned for May 2010 where Desti-nations® will be promoted through a teaching resource workshop.

•A Certificate in Personal and Professional Development (CPPD) Module (‘Reflect on Me’) will be developed and supported by Destinations® to help academics deliver on the PDP/employability agenda.

•Plans to develop the postgraduate section of Destinations® are under way.

Resources available



•Lesson plans

Contact details


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Growing careers education from the grassroots: Part 2

For more information, please contact:

David Stanbury

Centre for Career Management Skills University of Reading Carrington Building Whiteknights PO Box 217 Reading RG6 6UA

[email protected] Tel (0118) 378 8506 Fax (0118) 378 8355www.reading.ac.uk/ccms

growing careers education from the grassroots · laura brown for their assistance. 5 sciences ......

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