Last week the teaching year and exams finished at the University of Edinburgh and therefore the Student Information Points (SIPs) moved to holiday opening hours. This meant that the SIP at Kings Buildings closed for the summer and the one in the Main Library in George Square changed it's opening hours to 11.00 - 15.00 Monday to Friday.
The other thing that happened was that I left my role as Student Information Points Manager as I am taking up a new role at Heriot Watt University.
This year has been a very interesting and challenging year.
I've enjoyed working at the University of Edinburgh, it is a great university and it is vast - there is no way of understanding how big and diverse it is until you become part of it. Then you realise that it is all encompassing and also devolved. It is also very tolerant and very interesting. I wanted to work in a University and that was the reason for moving from an FE College and it has definitely fulfilled that criteria.
There are some beautiful historic buildings as well as some very quirky and odd buildings. The office for the SIPs is in Buccleuch Place, in an attic flat, with 92 steps to the top and although I'm sure it has done me good I'm not going to miss the climb.
I have gained valuable experience of working in a project - not only working in a project but starting from the very beginning and setting up a service from scratch at the very beginning of a project. It has been interesting and challenging to implement and develop an enquiry service while still planning and deciding which direction it should move in. It's been good to have that opportunity to have a flexible approach and have targets that are not set in stone apart from, of course, delivering an effective service. It's very different, or at least I found it very different, from being embedded in the organisational structure of the institution.
I enjoy and appreciate opportunities to work in a changing environment and manage change - the more situations that you are involved in then the easier it becomes to recognise that a particular tactic or strategy may work. Sometimes it is instinctive but as time goes on you react more efficiently to the situation - or at least I hope I do.
As ever managing staff is the best thing and also the most difficult thing. It was great starting with a team who were all brand new i.e the job roles of everyone were new, no one knew each other and there wasn't any baggage. All of the SIP team are personable, clever and enthusiastic which was great. It takes time to establish a working team and in hindsight I would have spent more time building although perhaps there is no quick way and it has to evolve. It takes time to establish working practices and ways of doing things and prior experience counts.
The job roles evolved differently than the initial job descriptions outlined and I think this is one of the key things about a new project - you have to adapt and change as you go along and fit to the demands of the service. The roles developed into more than an enquiry answering service and became a combination of customer support, campaigns/resource creating and also research and miniprojects.
Being part of the project team, the Student Experience Project (of which the SIPs are one strand), has been brilliant - everyone has been funny, quirky, clever and mega efficient.
The successes of the Student Information Points have been:
1. Setting up and maintaining a face to face enquiry service for students, staff and visitors at a number of locations.
2. Providing other communication channels and ways of accessing information i.e. webpage, email, text
3. Logging and recording enquiries to inform the development of the service and to provide data about student information
4. Creating resources, paperbased and electronic, to provide information for students based on information collated from existing University information into more accessible and relevant formats. Also new information as and when needed.
5. Outreach activities which involved having a SIP presence at other parts of the University such as Edinburgh College of Art, the School of Education at Moray House, the Vet School at Easter Bush and the halls of residence at Pollock Halls.
6. Campaigns to raise awareness of the information / enquiry service and promoting an 'Ask us Anything' facility.
7. Liaising with staff across the university in central support services and support services in the schools and colleges
8. Involvement in feedback - surveys and focus groups
9. Planning for inductions, freshers week and other events and key dates in the academic year and student life cycle.
There is more, day to day things and strategic things that I've learnt about and experienced, but for now thats it, time to move on.
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