91app

The keynote session on Friday morning at RIDE picked up strongly on one of the three conference subthemes: Engagement, wellbeing and belonging.  Four speakers from the 91app – two members of senior staff in person and two students online – presented the University’s Student Ambassadors scheme, explaining how it works to foster a sense of community engagement and belonging among the University’s 40,000 students. 

The presenters were Joanne Harris, Associate Director of Student Life for the 91app; Isobel Edwards, Senior Manager: Student Engagement and Communications at the 91app; and two Student Ambassadors, Kyle Jussab, studying computer science and Noor Ul Huda, studying law.  

Liz Marr, who had become a CODE Fellow following retirement from the role of Pro-Vice-Chancellor: Students at the Open University, chaired the session. She began by stressing that ‘everything we do is about people’ and, with that in mind, she introduced each presenter by telling us ‘something unique’ about each one. Noor, she said, was ‘not very sociable’ but was finding that work as a Student Ambassador was bringing her out of her shell. Kyle confessed to an irrational fear of grasshoppers; Isobel is a closet fan of The Lord of the Rings; and Joanne once spent a week on a remote island in Indonesia during a monsoon with no electricity. 

Introduction: Student Life 

Liz handed over to Joanne and Isobel to introduce the Student Ambassador scheme. Joanne started with a brief introduction to the Student Life team at the University, and to its role. It is hard to build a sense of community and belonging in the 91app student community, with its central staff never meeting most of its students. 

The small Student Life team, which she leads, aims to provide all 91app students, wherever they are physically based, with a rich, distinctive and engaging experience that fosters that sense of community and helps them succeed. The team sees and evaluates several ‘measures of success’: 

• Communications through blogs, podcasts and social networks 
• Engagement 
• Wellbeing through, for example, a counselling service and an early intervention service, with the latter available 24/365 
• Learning Enhancement (e.g. digital and AI literacy) 
• Inclusive Culture and EDI, via a new Inclusive Culture Hub 
• Community and Belonging 
• Student Satisfaction, Retention and Success 

Before COVID, the Student Life team had identified a need for more informal student-to-student support and run a few pilot schemes (both peer-to-peer and alumni to student) in Sri Lanka and Canada. The pandemic changed everyone’s perceptions of the utility and practicality of online communities, and the idea of using an online platform to build outreach and support for students in a welcoming ‘safe space’ across diverse time zones was born. The 91app Global Community – an online space that was co-created between students and staff – came about when a group of students in Pakistan approached them with the idea of using a group chat platform, , as an online ‘safe space’ for students. 

The Student Ambassador Programme

Isobel described how The 91app’s Student Ambassador programme came about, and how it works. The scheme was launched from the Global Community platform but modelled on an alumni ambassador scheme that the University had run for some time.  

Not surprisingly, an enormous amount of work went into preparing the scheme before it was launched. Isobel explained two key principles that they had kept in mind throughout the process. Firstly, the volunteer student ambassadors themselves had to find it a really fulfilling opportunity, and to feel confident in everything they were doing. And secondly, the whole student community had to be kept safe, and the peer-to-peer support offered by the ambassadors had to be valuable for all. They therefore developed a comprehensive onboarding programme for new ambassadors to make sure they knew exactly what was required of them, and provided ongoing support for them throughout their time in the role. A code of conduct, produced with the University’s legal team, outlines how ambassadors are expected to interact with their fellow students; for example, it advises when and how an ambassador should escalate a student’s problem up to the student life team. 

The role is voluntary and unpaid, but students are offered incentives to take part: both formal ones, such as references and notes on their degree transcripts, and a popular range of merchandise. There are engagement events and a monthly newsletter for ambassadors, who are asked – and expected – to contribute to developing the programme. Overall, the programme provides an opportunity to develop skills that will be useful in the careers that the students aspire to. The appointment process is quite rigorous, with applicants expected to show a positive relationship with the University and support for their peers. 

The programme largely operates through the popular Discord platform, in a contained space that is exclusively for 91app students and alumni. There is an ‘ask an ambassador’ channel for individual students to pose questions, and the handle is readily available, so students find it easy to look for an ambassador in their own programme or teaching centre. The 60 ambassadors who are currently in place cover a wide range of programmes, locations and study routes, and these students are playing a key role in promoting an online community for all students, perhaps particularly on social media.  

So far, feedback from staff, ambassadors and their fellow students has been very encouraging. Student engagement with blogs, vlogs and other social media posts by ambassadors has been growing. The ambassadors themselves are seen as friendly and informative, and all students surveyed would recommend the scheme to their colleagues.  

Isobel then handed over to the two Student Ambassadors on the call, first Kyle and then Noor, to describe how the scheme works from the inside. 

Student Ambassadors: From the horse’s mouth 

Kyle explained how, almost as soon as he had arrived at the 91app, he had ‘fallen in love with’ the community and taken every opportunity to contribute to it.  He began by blogging and taking part in podcasts, and he joined the Student Voice group. With the ambassador programme, he says, ‘all these ways of engaging are in one place’. He appreciates the formal recognition and the merchandise, but he is most excited to hear of students who have, for example, started blogging or increased their involvement with the student community because of his input. He is happy that future students will have the same opportunity to become involved with the scheme. 

Noor, a law student based in Karachi, Pakistan, explained that, as an ambassador, she had become much more connected to the student community than she ever thought she would be. She has learned a lot from her fellow ambassadors, connecting through the Discord platform which is a valuable resource for diverse student communities: there are channels for music, entrepreneurship, research and many others. Her student ambassador journey has been part of ‘connections, growth and being part of something that really matters… and learning useful skills’. 

Discussion

The panel then moved to a short question and answer session. This covered the methods of selecting ambassadors – the team looks for some experience of student life and a range of complementary skills – the length of an ambassador’s term, and the place of the scheme alongside the University’s formal structures. Students appointed as ambassadors have the option to continue in that role until graduation, at which point they can, if they wish, join the alumni ambassadors scheme. And the scheme is independent of all formal structures, although there are opportunities for ambassadors to feed into them if the need arises. 

This led into an exercise in which delegates were invited to discuss two general questions, with flipcharts in the room and a online for feedback. The questions were: 

• What is the role of the institution in fostering community engagement, to what extent can students be empowered to build their own community and what factors influence their needs? 
• How can online platforms be used to create a sense of place for distance learners in the absence of a physical meeting place and how can their impact and success be measured? 

Liz began a short final discussion by picking up on a few points from the padlet that highlighted the value of giving students projects to work on or problems to solve together, and that pointed out that ‘staff-created spaces’ online don’t work as well as ‘student-created spaces’. She then asked those in the room for feedback from the discussions on their tables. Those at one table had drawn a cafetière on their flipchart and arranged discussion points around it, to highlight the importance of students having a ‘safe space’ together for discussion, perhaps over coffee. The final word went to the Student Ambassadors, Kyle and Noor, who both stressed the value of the programme for them personally and the student community as a whole.