The third and final Online Student Forum of the 23-24 academic year was hosted by the Union of Students and the University of Derby Online Learning team on Thursday 27th June.
The third and final Online Student Forum of the 23-24 academic year was hosted by the Union of Students and the University of Derby Online Learning team on Thursday 27th June. There was a lot of discussion around learning and teaching and opportunities and careers and these points have been summarised below:
- There was a question regarding live teaching sessions on the operations, principles and calculations for the Accounting and Finance Course. No one from this course was present at the meeting so Ian Whitehead, Academic Head of Online, stated that online sessions should be taking place to support these topics providing they were done in a way to be accessible to all. Ian will forward this to the college for feedback to the students on this programme. Hannah Stanley Scott, Operation Manager for the Online Hub, added that if the student would like to get in touch with herself or Ian then they can follow up on the specifics.
- A student on the MSc Sustainability and Environmental Management course commented that being expected to comment on other students work in the discussion forums is time consuming and often repetitive, and asked for this to be addressed. Uche Okere, Academic Lead for Environmental Management, replied to this query via email, saying that “Although we encourage students to engage with the forums by commenting on other student posts in addition to making their own posts, this does not contribute to their grades and students are only encouraged to use the forums as additional learning opportunities. Those who don't see the benefit or can't find the time to use them do not get penalised in any way. We hold weekly drop in sessions where students can ask any questions and discuss module contents or assessment related questions with their module tutors. I hope this helps and I'll be happy to speak to any student about their concerns.”
- There was a question about the last module independent study on the Accounting & Finance course. As no one was available from this course Yukari Iguchi, Academic Lead in Leisure, gave an overview stating that for business subject, and likely other subjects too, there is a six week tutor period to brush up on knowledge and skills about research methodology after which students will submit a proposal for their topic of research. Students will then be allocated a tutor and will develop their proposals more and complete a research ethics process.
- A query was raised for an explanation or clarification of the module results moderation process as some students had their marks reduced. Ian Whitehead replied and mentioned that grades are subject to internal and external moderation which can alter initial grades given.
- There were a number of questions regarding career support for which the following links should be useful.
Other links which students may find useful that were shared during the forum are:
This was the last online student forum Pieter Van Ellewee will be chairing as the Online Student Officer, Fulgence Mazie, will be taking over in the new academic year, Pieter thanked the Online Academic Team for their support. Fulgence is on hand to support all online students in their studies; you can contact him via email here: edu.online@derbyunion.co.uk.
If you missed the Forum, you can catch up using this link.