5.3 The help they've had along the way

At the end of a project, only the deliverables are visible. It is difficult to gauge the amount or source of supplementary "help" or "technical assistance" that students have had.

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This bundle allows staff to record, and supervisors to quantify, the amount and extent of help given to students, and to factor this into the assessment process.

The way it works is that students undertaking a project are given a set number of "vouchers", which they can trade in for assistance from any qualified member of staff. The voucher is filled in by the staff member to indicate the purpose and extent of the help given (and to whom) and returned to the project supervisor for consideration in the assessment process. Thus every submitted project has an associated file of completed help vouchers (which will range from none to maximum).

Each piece of advice or assistance is worth one or more vouchers. The number of vouchers per student may be fixed at the outset, and no more issued.

A Voucher might consist of:

By using this bundle, students can approach staff who have the required expertise, rather than being restricted to their project supervisor. Students know how much help they can expect with their work and at the same time an upper bound is placed on the commitment of staff to supporting that work (which, in extremis, can be factored into staff loading calculations). Records of what help students have required can be used to identify curriculum "weak spots".

It works better if there is a shared understanding of voucher currency (the voucher/advice exchange rate) amongst staff. It is particularly suitable in situations where all students undertake the same project (in order for comparison of the amount of help needed to be meaningful).

It doesn't work unless the market for help is accurately judged. If too few vouchers are handed out students will not get assistance they need and/or a black market may emerge; if too many vouchers are handed out you risk a flood of "use it or lose it" queries

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So: look for a mechanism which can record the formal (and semi-formal) help the students have received.