Programme Handbooks and Information for Students

Information for Students

It is important that students are supplied with all of the information that they need to be successful in their studies. This will include information that is specifically focussed on the courses and programme that they are enrolled in, as well as information about Unitec services that can assist them during their time with us, including our various policies and procedures that affect the way that we do things.

This page presents the wide range of information that needs to be in place to ensure that every student has the best shot at being successful. Its focus is from the perspective of the Programme Teams and includes suggestions for how to ensure that all the information for students is as good as it can be at any time.

Programme and Course related information

Information for students is made available in a variety of ways including:

• Student handbooks that include:
  • general information about each Programme, School and the teaching Staff
  • specific information about programme regulations and requirements including academic progress and commitment
  • links to policies and procedure, student services and other key information
• Course Information including Course Details, learning materials and Assessment Requirements usually deployed using a Moodle course shell
• Unitec Web-site (often the first encounter with Unitec, with information about all programmes including entry criteria and requirements)

Student Handbooks

In early 2019 we deployed a formal standardised Programme Handbook via Moodle for every programme at Unitec. This was in response to learnings taken from the EER about the quality of information that we give to students. The following is a screen shot of the main page:

The important part of this is the selection of buttons that are used by students to locate the information that they need. The buttons connect to a mixture of existing Moodle and Unitec Website Pages, and also programme specific pages that will are populated with Programme specific information. So looking in closeup it looks like this:

The buttons where programme specific information have been collated are as follows:

Programme Details button should link to a Moodle Discipline Student home page that contains specific information about each programme including:

• Welcome to the Programme [Introduction from APM]
• About the Programme [From website, or APM or Programme Document]
• Outcome Statement [From Programme Document]
• Graduate Profile [From Programme Document]
• Programme Structure [From Regulations, or simplified by APM]
• Staff Details which should be a full-some staff list which should detail the courses that each staff member teaches. Contact details for staff should be email only (also linked from the Staff Details button).

If you do not have a Moodle Discipline Student Home Page, then we can link this button to a document which contains the above information. Either of these two options will need regular updating to ensure that the information contained does not go out of date.

Course Details button leads to a directory of the current course descriptors, which in some cases will be pdf versions of MyCourseDetails.

Assessment includes rules and regulations for assessment such as resubmits, late assignments, and links to submitting APCs, etc. We encourage programmes to also place a table of all assessment due dates under this button.

My Study Plan button links to the place where study plans have already been deployed.

Regulations and Policy button contains the current programme regulations and other policy elements.

Get Involved and Feedback button leads to info about becoming a student rep, and a TPA designed anonymous survey that allows us to collect feedback from students throughout the course. This is not supposed to replace Course Feedback, but rather give students more options to feedback.

Course Improvements button is where we collate the results of ‘what we have done’ to improve courses based on student feedback. This comes from the plans prepared and approved at PAQC.  Therefore completing this long neglected loop.

All of the other buttons link to pre-existing pages that are maintained and kept up to date by others.

The Course Details and Regulations sections are maintained by TKK Administrators. All other pages are maintained by their various owners.

Access to view Student Handbooks

Unfortunately it is not possible to give all teaching staff direct access to the handbooks that they are associated with due to the manual nature of that process and the changing staff profile. However every handbook has been set up for ‘Guest Access‘. All you need to do is to type “Student Handbook” into the search window and then navigate to the page that you want to view. Simply follow the instructions for viewing the page as a guest.

Course Details

Information for students about the courses in which they are enrolled is generally provided through MyCourseDetails which are directly uploaded into the Student Handbooks. This information can also be provided directly as text in the Course Moodle page. Minimum requirements for this course information includes:

• Course name, code number, level and credit value
• Course requisites
• Learning hours
• Course Aim/Outcome Statement
• Course Learning Outcomes
• Course Topics
• Teaching and Learning approaches
• Course Assessment descriptions and weighting
• Learning Resources
• Table denoting recent Course Improvements

Assessment Information Briefs

A specific Assessment Brief should be provided via Moodle for each assessment and component if the assessment has parts delivered at different times. This information must provide details of the commitment and requirement for the student to succeed in the assessment. Minimum requirements for an Assignment Brief include (but are not limited to):

• Information about the course that the assessment is part of including:
  • Course name, code number, level and credit value
  • The learning outcomes that the assessment relates to
• A clear description of the assessment task which may include a rationale for how the assessment fits into the learning and the indicative date that the assessment will occur
• Clear instructions and guidelines for execution of the assessment task, including any information for participation requirements in group assessment
• Procedures for submitting the assessment
• Regulations governing the assessment (or links) incl. rules around late submission, assessment in te reo Māori, resubmission/reassessment, affected performance consideration, appeals, etc.
• Grading procedures and the marking rubric that will be used for the assessment
• An indicative timeline for the return of assessment feedback and the release of assessment grades

Moodle Course Standards

Minimum standards for all student-facing Moodle based Courses and Programme landing pages were made mandatory from Semester One 2015. This was undertaken to achieve the following:

1. Separation of learning content and course information for easy and uniform learner navigation
2. Assurance of the presence of all necessary course information by a list of basic requirements
3. Application of a basic best practice web and course design standards towards a more standardised look and feel
4. A consistent programme-wide approach in visual design and handling of information to ensure the best student experience

The Standards represent basic best practice in creating online courses, good web design and user-friendly online presentation. They also apply the minimum accessibility standards as set out by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Many of the recommendations in this document are directly linked to those worldwide standards.

For more information see the Unitec Moodle Standards, Templates & Best Practice Moodle page.

Unitec Web-site

Information for Students starts before they sign up for a course with us. Their first encounter with a Unitec Programme will likely be through our Website. A student will look for the programme that will give them the foot up to a career that they are looking for. It is important that our programme pages give our prospective students the best information possible to help them choose Unitec as the place where they would like to study. So it is important to Check the Website Information regularly to ensure that it is up to date and tells the best story about your programme. If you find something that is out of date, or that needs changing, you can do this by liaising with our marketing@unitec.ac.nz.

Admission Requirements

Also accessed through the Unitec Website, students need to know what they need to have achieved in previous study and what else they have to provide to be able to enrol. The information on our website is derived from approved Programme Regulations. These are included in the Programme Information Repository (PIR) which is used by the enrolment team when admitting students.

Study Plans

Also available to new and returning students via the Untec Website are study plans that have been created for each programme, and also each major/specialisation/strand of each programme. This study plan informs students which courses they need to take in each semester to complete their programme.

Timetable

When a student is enrolled they gain access to their full class timetable via MyUnitec Portal. There is also a version of the timetable that is available course by course on the Unitec Website to help students choose their courses.

Policy and Procedure

A dedicated page give students access to key Policy and Procedures that affect their enrolment, learning and progression through their programme.

Forms

A dedicated page give students access to key forms that affect their enrolment, learning and progression through their programme.

Useful Resources

Process

Templates/Forms

Example manual Staff page

Example manual Programme Details Page

Relevant Policies and Procedure

AC 1.0 Academic Development and Approval Policy

AC 1.1 Qualification and Programme Development and Approval Procedure

AC 1.2 Programme Regulations Procedure