This session outlines the key findings from the Jisc Student digital experience tracker survey of 22,000 UK learners. The session also includes links to how institutions are using the tracker to engage their students to support their digital developments

1. Tracking learners’ digital experience: the benefits
and impacts
ALT-C
#digitalstudent http://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org

2. Joined by…
»EmmaThompson Education Lead at University of
Liverpool Library
»Vikki Liogier, Head of Digital Literacy,Voice & Innovation
at Epping Forest College
»Cheryl Brown, Senior Lecturer, University of CapeTown
»Helen Beetham, Consultant toTracker project
» Sarah Knight, Head of Change student experience, Jisc

3. »Reviewed students’ expectations and experiences
of the digital curriculum, environment and services:
» in HE (2013-2014)
» among school leavers (2014)
» in FE (2014) and in the adult and skills sector (2015)
» among online learners (2016)
http://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve.org
The ‘digital student’ project

4. Outcomes of this work: postcards
Available to download from:
http://bit.ly/FEdigitalstudentoutputs

5. Outcomes of this work: benchmarking tool
»Jisc, NUS andTSEP
»http://bit.ly/digstudentbenchmark

6. Outcome: student digital experience tracker
From consultations with Jisc stakeholders we found:
› interest in the ‘digital student’ studies
› appetite to find out more locally, engage
students in their own digital experience
› no existing instruments, surveys or quality
processes captured the digital experience
› organisations wanted something proven,
easy to administer, credible, and actionable.
Find out more: http://ji.sc/student-tracker

7. Student digital experience tracker
» The tracker has now been through two large-scale pilots. It
allows universities and colleges to:
› gather evidence from students about their
digital experience
› benchmark their findings
› make better informed decisions about
the digital environment and curriculum
› target resources for digital provision
› plan other research, data gathering and
student engagement around digital issues
› demonstrate quality enhancement and
student engagement to external bodies

8. First pilot (2016)
»10,753 unique data sets
»Case studies from 7 institutions
http://bit.ly/trackercasestudies
»Full report is available
from:
http://bit.ly/student-
tracker-report

9. Second pilot (2017)
»74 institutions and 10 international
universities
»22,593 responses from UK students and
5,000 from international students
»New question sets with optional
questions for institutions to edit
»Importance of involving students as
partners and researchers in the process
and in follow up actions

10. TheTrackers provides findings about…
» Students in HE and FE, adult, work-based
and skills, and online learning
» Digital access and ownership
» Digital skills
» Digital learning on course and beyond
the course
» Attitudes and feelings about digital
technology in learning
» Advice for institutions from learners

11. Reasons for using the Tracker - what the pilots said
1.Inform ourselves about the student digital experience
2.Gather evidence to support specific actions (e.g. in respect of the
curriculum, student digital support, and/or digital infrastructure)
3.Demonstrate that we are engaging with students and responding
to their feedback
4.Evaluate ourselves – against other institutions (benchmark), or
over time (monitor), or in relation to our aims for a specific
initiative/strategy/project etc (evaluate)
5.Gain intrinsic value from the project process (e.g. student
engagement, other stakeholder engagement, benefits of working
with Jisc/other institutions)

12. Your students’ digital experience
» How does your institution currently gather information about
students’ digital experience(s)?
Go to www.menti.com enter code 11 65 64
» How could you use theTracker alongside or instead of these
activities? Add ideas to http://bit.ly/trackeraltc17

13. Over to our pilots…University of Liverpool
» How did the University of Liverpool get a
high response rate from its HE students?
“We did not want to burden students with yet
another institutional survey, so the fact that
we could rely on two questions relating to
EMA in the tracker survey was brilliant [for
evaluating our EMA project].We were able to
get a sense from 670 students that for them,
the format of feedback mattered less than the
quality. This helped us make sense of both
student and staff perspectives to support our
action planning for EMA.”

14. Over to our pilots…Epping Forest College
» How did Epping Forest College
engage their learners as change
agents?
» “I found the digital student tracker
beneficial as it allowed us to find out
what technology issues and experience
our peers had in the college, this way
the college could make sure ongoing
issues are resolved and experience
improved.”
Brad, Student

15. Over to our pilots…University of CapeTown
» How was theTracker used to support an
international, cross-university research
project?
“We have used many surveys over the years
to try and understand students’ access to and
use of ICTs for learning.The challenge has
always been length and relevance to students
in our context.Tracker was quick and easy for
students to participate in but still focused
enough for us to gain valuable relevant data
for our university and project context. I will
definitely suggest we roll it our more widely.”
Project participant

16. Key findings from 2017Tracker
»At a glance – key findings
»In focus – what students
like and dislike about
using technology for
learning
»Institutional insights –
how institutions are using
theTracker to engage
learners in digital
developments

17. Key findings 1
» Differences exist in the parity of provision and use of devices
across the different learner groups, which are likely to impact
the future delivery of digital content/services:
› Lower wi-fi access for FE
› Higher reliance on personal devices in HE
» Digital technology in the learning space appears to be
working well to deliver content, but is not fully engaging
learners.The transformational aspect is still missing
» Learners do not feel like their courses are preparing them well
for the digital workplace, suggesting a potential mismatch
between the skills employees require and those students are
familiar with

18. Key findings 2
»More could be done by providers to support and educate
learners on digital safety and wellbeing
»Low proportions of learners are engaged with their
providers on current digital provision and future
development.
»The student digital tracker provides an ideal platform to
open up this conversation

19. What’s new for 2018?
» Factor analysis has confirmed that the survey is robust, and
we have refined the questions still further for 2017-18 to
ensure you only ask learners about issues that are clear,
relevant, valid, and actionable:
› overall measures of digital satisfaction
› better correlation with the NSS for HEIs
› questions for institutional leads about organisational
drivers
› opportunity to send out individualised links to learners
› data tracking by anonymised IDs to support merging with
other sources of learner data

20. Explore theTracker survey
» Access theTracker here: http://bit.ly/trackersample2018
» Use the Planning guide: http://bit.ly/trackerguide18
» How could you use theTracker in your institution? Share your
ideas and questions on the padlet: http://bit.ly/trackeraltc17
» What questions do you have for the team?

21. Get involved
» Sign up for 2018Tracker by
30th September:
http://bit.ly/trackersignup18
» Join the tracker mailing list
http://jiscmail.ac.uk/jisc-
digitalstudent-tracker
» See project website:
http://ji.sc/student-tracker
» Offer input on forming the
measures for digital satisfaction:
http://bit.ly/2wzoFkM
» Follow our blog:
https://digitalstudent.jiscinvolve
.org
» Follow #digitalstudent and
@jisc
» Email
tracker.support@jisc.ac.uk