M25 Conference 2018 Listen: Engaging with hidden or silenced voices and experience
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The document discusses engaging with hidden or silenced voices at the M25 Annual Conference 2018. It summarizes student demographics at the University of East London, noting diversity in age, ethnicity, gender and disabilities. Although library services get good feedback, it questions whose voices may be missing. Customer insight and engagement criteria are presented. The library has since listened to parents/carers by adapting policies to be more child-friendly and created a Belonging Project to give students with disabilities a sense of belonging.
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M25 Conference 2018 Listen: Engaging with hidden or silenced voices and experience
- 1. LISTEN M25 Annual Conference 2018
- 2. “Listen”: Engaging with hidden or silenced voices and experience David Clover – Head of User Engagement @davidclover
- 3. The University of East London
- 4. Student demographics • Over 12,000 students on campus • Primarily undergraduate (over 80%) and full time • 62% female • High number of mature students (only 41% 18-20; 38% over 30) • Ethnically diverse: 34% Black, 33% White, 21% Asian • 12% declared disability (46% of which dyslexia/learning disability) • Many first generation to attend Higher Education
- 5. UEL Library Services consistently get good feedback…. BUT
- 6. Whose voices are we missing?
- 7. Why does it matter?
- 8. CRITERION 1 – CUSTOMER INSIGHT 1.1 Customer identification 1.1.1 We have an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of our current and potential customer groups based on recent and reliable information. 1.1.2 We have developed customer insight about our customer groups to better understand their needs and preferences. 1.1.3 We make particular efforts to identify hard-to-reach and disadvantaged groups and individuals and have developed our services in response to their specific needs.
- 9. CRITERION 1 – CUSTOMER INSIGHT 1.2 Engagement and consultation 1.2.1 We have a strategy for engaging and involving customers using a range of methods appropriate to the needs of identified customer groups. 1.2.2 We have made the consultation of customers integral to continually improving our service and we advise customers of the results and actions taken. 1.2.3 We regularly review our strategies and opportunities for consulting and engaging with customers to ensure that the methods used are effective and provide reliable and representative results.
- 10. We believe that everyone should have the chance to benefit from higher education if they want to. All students should have equal opportunities to succeed and progress, regardless of their background.
- 11. UEL Corporate Plan Commitment to •Social Mobility •Social Justice •Social Innovation •Social Cohesion
- 13. LISTEN
- 15. Parents and carers “There is no designated area where it is safe to let children that are young out of the pram” “There seems to be no notice or signage that children are allowed” “Glares from onlookers if the child makes the slightest noise”
- 16. Parents and carers Adapted signing in form, removing time limits and offering to fetch books Provided baby changing facilities Created small collections of children’s books
- 19. The Belonging Project “I’m thinking maybe my collection of identities would mean that I prefer to be able to sit on my own rather than constantly being in a group.”
- 20. Questions?
Hinweis der Redaktion
- 35 minutes including Q and A
- Who am I? Head of User Engagement, University of East London, Library and Learning Services A white man (in a suit) Queer, of working class background, first generation to attend university, and a migrant to the UK It is important when we talk about identity as it relates to our users, to acknowledge our own identity or identities and the impacts of both our privileges and disadvantages. It is also important to understand and recognise that our identities and experiences are rarely those of our users.
- First – a bit about the University of East London UEL is a “New” university – situated in East London… with an institutional commitment to serve East London communities and local students in the – East London and Thames gateway areas, areas of high ethnic diversity and relative deprivation (though moving out of the list of worst areas due to higher incomes), the communities have large numbers of young people and are very much changing and demographically dynamic UEL has two campuses, one on the edge of the Olympic Park in Stratford and one on the Royal Docks – opposite the City Airport, and a library on each campus
- Measures of user experience such as National Student Surveys or large scale satisfaction surveys tend to, across our sectors, present the (usually positive) experience of a homogenised student body, for whom libraries are often regarded as “a good thing”. UEL Library Services scores well on such measures (Last year’s NSS 87.42% a slight dip from previous years 90%) and informal feedback suggests high levels of satisfaction, and a recognition of responsiveness to student feedback (despite the usual concerns about noise, temperature, and the adequacy of collections)
- But whose voices are under-represented, missing or silent? In today’s presentation I will discuss the importance of focusing on specific groups of students who may otherwise be marginalised or silenced in user experience measures and how inclusive services that are therefore developed can meet the needs of all students. UEL Library and Learning Services’ customer insight strategy will be discussed as well as an overview of approaches and methods used to gain insight into the needs and behaviours of specific groups of students.
- UEL Library was awarded Customer Services Excellence at the end of last year. We’ve reviewed ideas about customer segmentation as we engaged with the Customer Service Excellence standard. The standard emphasises the importance of having an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of our users, that we have developed insight about our users to better understand their needs and preferences and that we make particular efforts to identify “hard-to-reach and disadvantaged groups and individuals” and have developed our services in response to their particular needs We made a decision to move beyond simplistic groupings such as undergraduate/postgraduate or part-time/fulltime to consider students’ lives and identities outside as well as within the institution, and the impact of this on student needs and behaviours in and outside library (physical and digital) spaces. Our thinking about students has expanded to consider more the different needs of students with caring responsibilities; commuting students; those who live or work locally and tend to “study and go” attending classes and essential other activity only on campus; first generation students; mature students (both younger and older mature students); students who want quiet, private space and students who want more group spaces and to see other students participate in study; and in a diverse student body students who identify in different ways by race, ethnicity, religion and sexuality.
- The Customer Service Excellence Standard also emphasises the importance of engaging and involving users, of making consultation with users integral to improving services, and of reviewing how we consult and engage so that methods used are effective and provide reliable and representative results. At UEL this has involved continuing with many of the strong consultation methods we had, but also increasing use of UX methods, of observations, graffiti walls and one to one interviews. We are experimenting with different approaches and being prepared to change approach if we don’t get the results we need. We’re also being more open with our questions – not always seeking answers to specific questions but letting themes and issues emerge from student perspectives. Some approaches have worked better with different groups.
- Another external driver is the Office for Students which states: “Educational inequality exists in England. We want to change that. There are certain barriers which have a greater impact on particular groups of students, and limit their chances of success. Data shows gaps in equality of opportunity in success and progression of: students of particular ethnicities; disabled students; students from areas of low higher education participation, low household income and/or low socioeconomic status; mature students. We believe that everyone should have the chance to benefit from higher education if they want to. All students should have equal opportunities to succeed and progress, regardless of their background.” Institutional Access and participation plans are intended to set targets and demonstrate how institutions will address these inequalities. For 2019-20 access and participation plans, the OfS lists underrepresented groups of students where data shows gaps in equality of opportunity in relation to access, success and/or progression: (students from areas of low higher education participation, low household income and/or low socioeconomic status; students of particular ethnicities; mature students; disabled students; and care leavers. In addition, they highlight carers; people estranged from their families; people from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities; refugees; people with specific learning difficulties and mental health problems; and children of military families. There are also students from groups where data is not collected at a national level or there are gaps in disclosure in the current national data, for example in relation to religion and belief and sexual orientation.
- Internally, the UEL Corporate Plan emphasises Our commitment to social mobility ensuring that our students have the opportunity to initiate change in their lives, maximise their potential and attain the educational experience that enables them to succeed in their chosen career, whatever their background Our commitment to social justice ensuring we remain committed to the principles of equality and diversity and that we continue to stand against all forms of discrimination and injustice Our commitment to social innovation working with our communities to deliver applied and sustainable solutions to the societal and environmental challenges that we face Our commitment to social cohesion empowering our students and staff to become ambassadors and active citizens for the long term benefit of their communities
- But more than the requirements of CSE, of the Office for Students or our own corporate plan It matters because it matters! Inclusive services matter because we want to offer the best service to all of our users Inclusive services matter because we care about student success (however defined) Inclusive services matter because we want all our users to feel welcome, comfortable and that they belong Inclusive services matter because we want all our users to have as few barriers as possible in their use of our services Inclusive services matter because every user matters and deserves our attention, and for services to meet their needs and circumstances Listening to students matters because we don’t always get it right and if we don’t ask, and if we don’t ask the right questions, we won’t know what we need to do better (or what in fact we do well)
- Inclusive services can’t be developed without listening to, consulting and co-designing with our users (and an ongoing process of review and further improvement) In the remainder of this presentation I want to discuss some of the practical steps we have taken to address what may otherwise be hidden and silenced voices and experiences (if we don’t ask the questions, or don’t ask the right questions) Case studies from research undertaken will include looking at students who are parents and carers, students with disabilities and a project looking at identity and “belonging”. Case studies will discuss methods used (both successful and less so), some results and actions taken as a result of these insight projects.
- More than a third of our students have dependents and a quarter of students are parents. Research in the UK suggests that student parents (and student mothers in particular) face challenges in the higher education environment. We were conscious that initiatives such as 24/7 opening, automatic renewal of borrowed books, and allowing parents and carers to bring children into the library (under supervision) were beneficial to students, but wanted to explore in more depth how we could improve the experience of these students. We considered and attempted to run focus groups – but experienced difficulties in recruitment - attendance in focus groups is generally an issue even with incentives, perhaps more so with students who are parents and carers and have less time to attend We decided to run a short survey using open ended questions, distributed to parents and carers who attended libraries with a child, as well as on the website. We asked: Reason for visit How long do you usually spend in the library? And open ended questions focused on what students liked about visiting the library with their child; what they didn’t like; and how we could improve our service for them While we have many positive responses parents also said:
- In response to feedback and suggestions we… Made changes to our signing in form, making the tone more welcoming, removing time limits and including an offer to fetch books if we were able to; we installed baby changing facilities in both libraries and created small collections of children’s books We weren’t able to create a special “family” room (not having spare space to do so) and put on hold ideas about offering tablets with pre-downloaded child friendly content and activity bags (with colouring in etc) as well as specific child sized furniture. We are currently surveying parents and carers again to see what else we need to be doing – so far we’ve heard that we need to do more to publicise what we offer! Since we carried out this work and publicised it within the institution the university as a whole has started to talk more about what it does for parents and carers (including improving data collection)
- In thinking about disability we need to be aware and alert to how disability is commonly portrayed even in our own institutions. Representation of students with disability is often of someone who uses a wheelchair, is blind and uses a white cane. Common images are of someone with a “severe” and obviously visible disability. The term disability includes a range of visible and non-visible conditions, some of which may vary in impact, and is inclusive of both physical and mental health conditions. At UEL we started a review of services over summer 2017 Benchmarking against institutions regarded as “best practice” generally Survey of all students through kiosks and Out and About sessions, asking what we could do for students with disabilities And carrying out one to interviews with students with disabilities, in partnership with our Disability Support Unit The feedback was rich and varied and one of the things we realised we needed to do was more interviews As a result of work to date we have Provided staff training on ASD and mental health Supplied students with Coloured overlays and Magnifiers Subscribed to the Sensus Access service allowing students to create more accessible formats Improved signage (including through use of customer journey mapping) Plan More pods (as funding allows) Increased recording of library staff training sessions and inductions Scoping font size on older book labels Improvements to assistive technology areas (partly increased demand) Proposal for an assistive technology post – university wide remot
- Current project – using cognitive mapping and individual interviews to explore ideas of belonging and comfort with specific groups of students Students provide rich and diverse feedback – for example some favouring space where can see other working and stream of activity, some liking quiet and secluded spaces and others describing complex strategies to manage use of space Interestingly many use metaphors of “home” to describe spaces in which they feel a sense of belonging, and many also make explicit reference to the importance of helpful staff It seems appropriate to finish with the words of one of our users – self described as “a female student of Arab origin, a British national and a Londoner of Muslim faith” studying engineering These cubbis are her favourite space in the library
- “I like the second floor in the library because you have the, I still think its referred to as the Skillzone area, because that is a collective area where people can meet up and there’s a bit of a noise - and then the other side is like a silent area and you can sit on your own and just focus on your work and I like that balance. I wouldn’t want just one floor of quiet… “ So you like that ability to move between spaces? “Exactly. Which is what I do pretty much every day. So I have a group of friends who like all to work together… And I understand the benefits of group work but I also like to sit on my own, so I like to hop in between. So that is really, really good for me.” “I’m thinking maybe my collection of identities would mean that I prefer to be able to sit on my own rather than constantly being in a group. I couldn’t say that confidently. I think it depends. But I would say that I’m less comfortable being in a group of people than someone else with a different identity. So they’d be happy to say, sit in the Skillzone with five or ten people shouting, “my idea’s better than yours”. I’d rather sit down and get on with my work. “So, my course is predominantly male, but I basically from the start of my course I have been working on my assignments and stuff and my studies with the females and with a few of the males, but the majority of them I don’t really make any efforts to work with them. They are very rowdy and argumentative. I’m not slating them – they’re just themselves… but if I have to work with those people then it is nice to have my things somewhere else and just go between…” What do you like about the cubbis? “…because it’s my own space and I can like, I can basically control it. Now there’s lamps in there, which I’m very happy about. I didn’t suggest it… I don’t know why. I never thought about it but those lamps are great, so obviously I can change the lighting as I want and also there’s the things you can close… the sound barriers which you can open and close… For me it’s particularly important if I know I’m going to be spending several hours in the library I’ll use those sound barriers and you know I’ll get a bit more relaxed, I’ll take my layers off, I’ll take this off, as well, my hijab off… to basically to feel like I’m at home, again. And that’s why I use those spaces as well. And obviously there are plugs right there. Because I usually come with a lot of electronics, a laptop, a tablet and my phone.”
- I hope these examples of some of the work we have done have been useful Any questions