By Katie Turner Educational Enhancement Coordinator

I recently returned to the Educational Enhancement after doing a secondment in Communications and completing my apprenticeship in Digital Marketing. I would describe it as doing an exchange trip if I was a student, going away to learn new experiences and skills. With this time away it has given me further knowledge and understanding of different areas that I hope to bring back to EE.

The importance of communication

Whether that is with our colleagues, staff or students. I had the opportunity to work on different campaigns for different projects with staff and students. The way we talk about subjects to audiences can have a significant impact on the message we are trying to portray. The channels in how we communicate, and we write for that channel. Not only does this mean writing but other media forms such as video, animation and photo galleries.

Engagement

Whilst doing my digital marketing apprenticeship I had the opportunity to look at data analytics that can be used to capture engagement from the use of different channels. This is strongly used in communications with every article or video launched for a campaign. I hope to use these data collecting skills capturing the engagement for the different events and blogs the EE team send out. One subject that really stood out on my digital marketing apprenticeship is understanding your customer’s journey.

What is a customer journey

A customer journey refers to the series of steps a customer takes when interacting with a product or business, from the first awareness of a product or service to post-purchase interactions and loyalty. Understanding this journey can help that business or department.

If students or staff are trying to gather a piece of information. A good exercise set out on the course was to try and step into the shoes of that persona, so that being an academic or student and try a roadmap of that customer trying to gather information or professional development. To do this we had to map create a persona and then map out what information they may want to try reach and then follow this journey for how they would retain this and the feelings of moments of truth whether it was a happy or bad experience.

In Educational Enhancement the team focuses on assisting academics with teaching and learning from all aspects from the technology side of providing classrooms online to the pedagogy side of teaching. The guidance for staff has been thought about from every angle and kept updated with the newer trends with the use of AI technology. Our main sources of information can be found on the Educational Enhancement webpages. The team are dedicated to help academics in schools and run online and in-person workshops on topics relating to enhancing teaching and learning. If staff want to study in their own time they can use a self-study course on Canvas.

I am excited to bring the knowledge back to Educational Enhancement and hope to use my new skills gained to combine them with the team’s expertise to help academics and students in more meaningful way.