The Design of Student Training Resources to Enhance the Student Voice in Academic Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement Processes

• Published in: Irish journal of academic practice Vol. 9; no. 2
• Main Authors: Ciaran O'Leary, Philip Owende, Jen Harvey, Hamza Jamaa, Mary Scally, Nicole O'Neill, Jan Cairns
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Technological University Dublin 01.12.2021
• Subjects: co-design; quality assurance; quality enhancement; student voice
• ISSN: 2009-7387
• DOI: 10.21427/JA3Y-RJ51

Without appropriate training and recognition, students – in particular Class Representatives – often struggle to engage fully with a University’s quality assurance and quality enhancement processes. Through the “Our Student Voice” project in Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), a suite of digital training resources were designed to provide training for students to help develop the requisite knowledge and skills for effective participation there processes, thus strengthening student engagement and enhancing the student voice. The resources are organised into thirteen accessible episodes that each commence with an animated scenario that sets out key messages. The remainder of the episode provides detailed guidance for students and learning activities to help students develop their skillset. Upon completion of the learning activities, and having satisfactorily undertaken one of three specific student role in the quality processes, students can apply for recognition through a digital badge. The training resources and digital badges have been co-designed by a project team comprised of staff and students from across the University guided by best practice internationally. This paper describes the co-design process and presents a set of lessons learned that may assist other higher education institutions in enabling impactful student engagement in their academic quality assurance and quality enhancement processes.