Funded RM Projects 2011-2012: Strand 3

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This section has information about the Strand 3: Alumni Engagement projects of the JISC Relationship Management Programme: Phase 2, which ran from 1st March 2011 to July 2012 and includes links to project blogs, websites, Twitter feeds, videos, and outputs, where available. There are 7 projects in this strand.

The other Strands of the Programme are:
 * Strand 1: Good Practice in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) (1 project, run jointly)
 * Strand 2: Student progression, retention and non-completion (8 projects).

Strand 3: Alumni Engagement
Demonstrator projects developing and validating innovative processes and harnessing web technologies to support mutally beneficial alumni engagement.

Aston University
Project: AstonConnect+: Supporting Mutually Beneficial Alumni Engagement Start: 1st March 2011 End: 31st August 2012 Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: Aston University Website: AstonConnect+ Website Video: AstonConnect+ RM Programme Video: Alumni Relations Case Study: A Report on the implementation of AstonConnect+ (PDF Format, 169Kb) Summary (From JISC website): This project recognises that increased business value can be derived by the efficient interoperability of systems and processes. It takes the current engagement process between students, alumni, and the business community and, by maximising the opportunities afforded by web technology,tranforms it into a global knowledge community referred to in this bid as AstonConnect+. The innovation of AstonConnect+ will support a mentoring programme and a number of networking initiatives aimed at sharing best practice and disseminating knowledge to alumni. AstonConnect+ brings together diverse stakeholders with different needs and expertise and facilitates the cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge exchange to the mutual benefit of all participants.

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Brunel University
Project: AGENT (Alumni Growth and Engagement across New Technologies) Start: 1st March 2011 End: 31st August 2012 Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: Brunel University Website: AGENT Website Case Study: Alumni Growth and Engagement across New Technologies (PDF format, 561Kb) Video: How Do We Use Social Networks To Engage Alumni: AGENT Project Summary (From JISC website): This project responds to the call from the Relationship Management programme, Strand III Alumni Engagement. The project aims to understand the links between alumni engagement and social capital for creating a connected community of graduates that have a strong affinity for their institution.

For this project, we have chosen to operationalise alumni engagement in the context of student employability and career development – a key area where the alumnus can provide support to an undergraduate and a topic of sector-wide concern. If the social capital approach proves fruitful – which we believe it will – it can be extended to other alumni engagement contexts where the ties between alumni and their institution can be strengthened through interaction with current students (and/or staff).

Within the project, a mentoring service is proposed, where the alumnus acts as a mentor to a current undergraduate in relation to employability and career development. The relationship is enabled by social networking technologies, providing a „bridge‟ between individuals whose social ties and connections are weakened by distance, whilst at the same time capitalising on the learning opportunities afforded by the widening of social networks.

The project's aims are to:
 * Improve engagement with alumni through technology-enabled processes;
 * Support the ways in which existing students connect with alumni and build mutually-beneficial relationships that reinforce positive feelings for the home institution;
 * Blueprint processes and redesign services to improve the student/alumnus experience with respect to investment in social capital;
 * Identify the employability and career development needs of undergraduates and alumni and use the knowledge gained to offer relevant support and advice to both groups;
 * Deliver a model of alumni engagement that can be rolled out to other university departments and build partnerships relevant to improving employability;
 * Contribute to, and share experiences with, the wider HE community with respect to developing alumni engagement processes using social networking technologies.

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Cardiff Metropolitan University (formerly UWIC)
Project: DePCEA (Developing a Professional Community Engagement Environment for Alumni Start: 1st March 2011 End: 31st August 2012 Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: Cardiff Met Website: GradSpace Website Case Study: GradSpace: Supporting the employability and lifelong learning of Cardiff Met alumni (PDF format, 1.99Mb) Video: Developing a Professional Community Engagement Environment for Alumni Summary (From JISC website): The project will develop and populate a Professional Community Engagement Environment to support alumni during their transition into the workforce and their subsequent lifelong professional development through:
 * independent & experiential learning
 * formal re-engagement with University provision
 * some permutation of these two options as appropriate to the needs of the individual.

The service provided will include:
 * an E-portfolio for action planning, recording achievement in maintaining personal resources reflective accounts and work in progress; bite-sized learning objects specifically orientated toward the issues challenges and opportunities related to transition to the world of work
 * discipline-related learning objects that stand-alone and also serve as a baseline for more substantive CPD opportunities
 * tools and learning objects that assist learners and their employers in understanding, and engaging with, the university’s framework for the accreditation of advanced professional practice
 * social networking tools that facilitate JISC Grant Funding 13/10
 * peer/mentor support for independent, collaborative and experiential learning and help to build communities of professional practice and business contact networks involving fellow alumni.

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University of Glasgow
Project: SAVE (Sustainable Alumni Volunteer Engagement) Start: 1st March 2011 End: 31st August 2012 Blog: SAVE Blog Website: SAVE Website Case Study: SAVE Project (PDF Format, 351Kb) Video: SAVE Project Twitter: @GlasgowSAVE Summary (From JISC website): The Sustainable Alumni Volunteer Engagement (SAVE) project aims to develop practices and processes that will enable the University to maximise the involvement of its alumni network in support of key strands of University strategy - student recruitment/conversion, the development of graduate attributes, and career progression.

The project will benefit from existing alumni volunteering activities, recent developments made possible by the integration of University services contact databases, and the combined expertise of, and synergies between, the Development and Alumni Office, Careers Service, and Recruitment and International Office to create Alumni Student Ambassadors and an Alumni Careers Network.

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University of Hertfordshire
Project: Alumni Link Start: 1st February 2011 End: 31st July 2012 Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog: University of Hertfordshire Website: Alumni Link Website Case Study: Alumni Linked-In (PDF format, 1.57Mb) Video: Alumni Link Summary (From JISC website): The project focuses on building mutually beneficial relationships between the University and its alumni, specifically by improving existing online services through the innovative use of API’s and widgets provided by online networking sites such as LinkedIn; and by taking an active approach to (online) community building, by creating and implementing a programme to develop initially two subject-specific professional communities (e.g. Creative Arts, Pharmacy) that bring together undergraduates, recent graduates and alumni to network and create employment and skills development opportunities.

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University of Kent
Project: EAT-PDP (Engaging Alumni Through PDP) Start: 7th February 2011 End: 27th July 2012 Blog: EAT-PDP Blog Website: EAT-PDP Website Case Study: A Case study – Engaging Alumni through Personal Development Planning (PDF format, 758Kb) Video: Engaging Alumni Through Personal Development Programming

Summary (From JISC website): The EAT-PDP project will prove the link between effective and ongoing web-based Personal Development Planning (PDP) and the creation of a mutually beneficial alumni relationship, by incentivising the involvement in, and promoting the value of, the PDP process. In cooperation with the Unit for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (UELT), Kent Innovation and Enterprise (KIE), Alumni Relations Office (ARO) and Careers Advisory Service (CAS) we will address the full student lifecycle by identifying the reusable entities created in the PDP process and exposing them appropriately. The project will also serve as a practical case study extension of the JISC funded Logins for Life project, which will highlight and provide measures to highlight and provide measures to mitigate the risk of providing services to the alumni community.

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University of Surrey
Project: Increasing alumni engagement and value using integrated web-networking technologies Start: 1st March 2011 End: 31st August 2012 Blog: Shared Alumni Engagement Blog Website: Increasing Alumni Engagement Website Twitter: @ForeverSurrey Case Study: Increasing engagement & value using integrated web-networking technologies (PDF Format, 333Kb) Video: JISC Project Video Summary (From JISC website): This project will embed an innovative, interactive web 2.0 technology called Tinychat into our website, with links to our Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter feeds. This novel arrangement will deliver a structured programme of real-time, web-based, global networking sessions and immediate follow-up activities (at minimal cost) designed to increase engagement of targeted groups of alumni and students and add value to their relationship with the University. The programme will create inclusiveness and a sense of belonging and increased penetration into our contemporary student community and will give our stakeholders (alumni, students, academics) access to knowledge exchange with influential people from related or unrelated fields; academic research; opportunities for career enhancement, motivation, mentoring and recruitment and re-engagement with the University. It will create further separation from the perception that Alumni Relations is merely a fundraising activity. Two specific cohorts will be independently evaluated by Curtis and Cartwright, namely MBA graduates and the STEM subject of Civil Engineering. The former tend to be more mature and through the nature of their course are more isolated and less cohesive. The latter have a high profile being involved in the provision of safe water and sanitation for disaster relief and collaboration with NGOs, and access to the visual media, and will provide a model to capture interest that will be translated to the Business cohort.

Image by lusi.

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