Media champions: Dumbing down or a savvy approach to modern research dissemination?

Growing up in a household with an academic now long since retired, whose aspirations were to achieve critical acclaim (and ideally more research funding) through peers, professional bodies and journals, brings into stark contrast the world in which I, his daughter, now operate. While these traditional ‘prestigious’ channels are still valid, it is apparent to me that blogging, tweeting, radio and the tabloid press have an equal – if not more important – role to play when it comes to highlighting the impact of academic research and investigation.

Nowhere was this more evident than when Birmingham City University celebrated its unique Media Champions training programme at the beginning of June. Channel 5’s Killers Behind Bars presenter Professor David Wilson, arguably the UK’s leading criminologist, joined Child Protection Expert and ITV journalist Mark Williams-Thomas, best known for exposing Jimmy Savile, to share an insight into the world of academic publishing as they know it. The session, hosted by the BBC’s Political Editor for the Midlands Patrick Burns, also featured up and coming academic Sophie Rowe. As a recently trained BCU Media Champion, Sohpie is about to embark on her PhD and will be combining both academic and media engagement tools from the start of her academic career.

Media Champions, recently short-listed in the 2013 Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards, is a unique partnership between the University’s Press Office, School of Media and Faculty academics. We use the experience, skills and knowledge of our Skillset-accredited School of Media to develop and deliver bespoke media training for our rising academic stars to equip them with the tools to promote their work more effectively through popular communication channels. Faculties nominate and pay for their staff development.

Past experience has taught me that the mere mention of a press release about academic research – in plain English – was enough to send shivers down the spine of many established academics, who felt that this form of ‘dumbing down’ was wholly inappropriate. Encouraging them to tweet, write blogs, record video diaries and speak to the likes of The Sun and Daily Mail would have appeared preposterous. Not so now.

As Sophie put it, if academics have something insightful and brilliant to say about current issues, it would seem a waste of both their talent and the opportunity to share such relevant research with a wider audience than simply those who read academic journals. An article in a national newspaper can reach thousands of individuals – more if it is picked up on twitter, as was the case with an article on US drone strikes in Pakistan by senior lecturer and terrorism expert Imran Awan.

 
Bringing academic research to a mass audience should not be seen as dumbing down, but as a means of ensuring that ordinary individuals – the people who vote in the politicians and have the strength in numbers to protest and force change – can learn more about issues (sometimes deliberately hidden) that affect their everyday lives.

For me, this is where the real impact of scholarly investigation lies. As traumatic and horrific as it has been, just look at the consequences and subsequent fall out of Mark’s investigation into Jimmy Savile. If the mass media had not picked up on the story in the way that it has, I wonder whether we would still be seeing the daily trickle of new charges and accusations or whether the victims would have continued to stay silent. As a result of the widespread publicity, which put considerable pressure on the BBC as well as the authorities, a line in the sand has now been drawn. Celebrities are as accountable as the rest of us; no matter what actor Jeremy Irons may think, there are no grades of abuse – abuse is abuse.

At BCU we have chosen to champion and support those academics who are willing to put themselves in a media spotlight. Unfortunately, as David has found, the public are as likely to comment on your appearance as they are your research. While Mark knows only too well that putting yourself out there will inevitably draw criticism, academics therefore need to steel themselves and not be deterred. For David, Mark, Sophie and all our media champions, the publicity that comes with the Media Champions programme is not an ego trip; it is not about achieving celebrity status, but is about finding ways of using academic context in a popular way.

If media and publicity can affect real change, as it has done in the case of the Savile investigation, then courting the journalists and acknowledging the reach of social media is surely a wise move. We may have to dumb down some of the terminology, but there’s nothing dumb in getting support and understanding from the masses – is there?

A competitive offa: How and who should track the effectiveness of outreach activities?

There is a growing debate within the Higher Education sector about the effectiveness of outreach activities in widening participation and whether this should be monitored at a national level. Just last week the 1994 Group called for the Government to start tracking university interventions through the National Pupil Database.

It’s a question we have been asking at Birmingham City University since last term when, for the first time, we had comprehensive data on full ‘lifecyle’ conversion from enquiry to enrolment. Having installed a professional enquiry management system in 2011, like many other universities we are now able to track the effectiveness of the full range of our recruitment activities – from telephone and email contact to master classes, taster days, UCAS fairs and Open Days.

BCU’s decision to hold an additional open day on Saturday February 23 appears to have paid off. So far, we have had over 1,500 prospective students register to attend, two-thirds of whom are intending to study this September. Many will just turn up on the day of course.

In terms of reach, Open Days are by far the biggest of our outreach activities – almost 6,000 prospective students visited us via that route in 2011/12. We also know that since the announcement of higher fees back in 2011, there has been a phenomenal increase in Open Day attendance. In the four-year period up to 2010, YouthSight research showed that over half all students attended no open days before handing in their UCAS form and a fifth would attend one open day. Yet by October 2011, the Guardian was already reporting a significant shift in behaviour with some universities reporting Open Day attendance up by 75% and many students visiting all five of their UCAS choices (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/31/university-open-days-soar).

Open Days are critical when it comes to educating prospective students about the benefits of Higher Education, albeit at a particular institution, and converting interest to application. The YouthSight 2012/13 Fact File found that a good first impression from universities’ open days was a major factor influencing university choice for over half of applicants. BCU’s research shows that 42% of those who attend an Open Day will go on to apply and around a quarter will eventually study with us.

As well as Open Day conversion rates, we know that roughly 20% of students who attended subject master classes in previous years went on to enrol at BCU and I can tell you the Faculty of Technology, Engineering and the Environment enjoys a 57% conversion rate from its Applicant Visit Days – the highest of our six Faculties. It sounds fairly impressive, but is it? What I don’t know is whether this level of conversion is competitive or even effective when compared to other similar universities.

There is very little shared information when it comes to benchmarking the success of not just Open Days, but the full range of outreach activities. Universities like BCU have been committed to widening participation since the outset and all institutions charging higher fees now have to outline their commitment to access to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). To me, OFFA would seem to be a logical choice to take more of an active role in tracking success and publishing benchmarks, which will hopefully be the outcome of the shared strategy for widening access to HE currently under review. But their remit will be limited, likely only to cover the activities included within institutional Access Agreements. For a broader assessment of the full range of recruitment activities, maybe a professional body like CASE or the mission groups themselves need to step in on behalf of the marketing professionals. 

Given the huge investment that is being ploughed into outreach activities at an institutional level, coupled with the desire at a national level to increase participation rates in Higher Education, there is surely a need to monitor such activities more effectively. To me, it doesn’t matter who takes on the challenge…as long as someone does. It’s in everyone’s interest to make sure we are getting it right.

 

Bursaries and scholarships - an incentive or not?

At Birmingham City University, we are mid-way through our regular student number planning sessions to review recruitment targets for the coming cycle and to forecast the pattern in 2014/15 and beyond. In terms of the undergraduate market, as you would expect, we are considering the impact of fees, the emerging trends at subject level and the expansion to ABB of the Government’s core and margin policy. The question that is repeatedly coming up, however, is whether financial incentives have made any difference to our current offer or have the potential to do so.
 
It’s an interesting debate – and I don’t for one minute pretend to have the answers. It’s also one that requires a little clarity.

As a firm believer in the virtues of and rights to access Higher Education, I – like many – am of the view that there should always be financial support that is essentially needs-based and intended to ensure those who require additional financial support are not deterred from University on this basis alone. The National Scholarship Programme has a merit of its own that should not necessarily be linked to recruitment targets or bottom line.

The financial support I am questioning is that which is primarily recruitment driven – to win over particular cohorts to select a specific institution or discipline over and above other HEIs.

It’s a perfectly valid marketing tactic and one that pervades everyday life (‘BOGOF’ still amuses me). Back in November, the Telegraph reported a range of universities offering up to £10,000 to secure ABBs, including some on my patch (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9670355/Universities-paying-10000-to-sign-up-bright-students.html).

A review of BCU’s financial support for 2012/13 against that of competitors found ours to be fairly modest. We did not go down the route of offering large chunks of cash to secure higher performing students or win back numbers in Clearing. That said, we did not lose out on our AAB students (though numbers are fairly small) and our recruitment performance, as per the UCAS figures released earlier this month, was very good by comparison with many others. Our accepted applicant figures – according to UCAS – were up 1.8% on 2011/12 (the reality is that our enrolments after people withdrew or did not turn up were slightly down, but not by much).

Marketing logic tells me that we should be offering financial support packages that are at least on a par with our competitors. Yet I have to wonder that since we did not do this and, as it transpires, did not need to in 2012, would it really make commercial sense to increase the money we give out in future, if it’s potentially to students that would come to us anyway?

A survey of our own enquirers for 12/13 revealed that 60% said bursaries and scholarships were quite or very important, but 69% said they would not affect the students’ decision to apply. Market research released by dh insight this month based on a small sample of Year 13 students predicted As and Bs found little awareness of financial incentives and that it was essentially considered “a nice add on” rather than being a critical part of the decision-making process. Similarly, the Institute of Fiscal Studies reported last November that the uncertainty of the whole process which means that students often do not know what bursaries and scholarships they would be eventually awarded prior to making their application (and often after enrolment) meant that it made little or no difference to their decision.

The issue I have is that much of this research that exists is based purely on student opinions. Unfortunately, we know that what people say and what they do aren’t always the same. Not many students said they would pay fees of up to £9,000, but over 400,000 did and many more intend to do so; UCAS applications for 2013 are up about 3% to date.

I would like to see some robust market research that analyses the support offered at particular HEIs against their actual recruitment, particularly those that did very well in securing AABs and the additional student numbers they were awarded.

So, the question remains…should universities be seeking to provide a competitive market offer when it comes to financial incentives or should they trust that the broader academic offer will be sufficient to recruit the numbers they desire? What's your view?

Spare a thought for university administrators this Clearing

For years there has been widespread publicity about the number of disappointed prospective students in Clearing. This week saw predictions of 100,000 missing out on a place this September because they either didn’t get the grades needed or secure a place in the world of capped student numbers we now live in. But spare a thought for the university administrators...

Clearing is a stressful time for prospective students and quite rightly the focus is on the panic and anxiety they face. However, Clearing is becoming equally as stressful for those managing the recruitment process. Hitting the strict target on full-time undergraduate numbers is as much a lottery as the Clearing process itself. Universities face severe penalties if they overshoot targets – a £3K plus fine for every student over-recruited and the possibility that targets will be reduced in future years.

It’s not as simple as just recruiting the number of students you need and then pulling out of the process. There are a myriad of variables and uncertainties throughout the recruitment process which make predicting the numbers who will go on to enrol as scientific as staring into a crystal ball.

Not every student who accepts an unconditional offer will turn up. Of those given a conditional offer – some will not meet the grade requirements and others, again, will choose to go elsewhere, particularly if they get higher grades than anticipated. Insurance offers are completely unpredictable – in the past most insurance offers almost never came to their second choice institution, but with higher fees looming from 2012 it’s reasonable to assume that this behaviour will change as people try to enter Higher Education under the current fee regime.

Conditional university offers are dependent on results, most typically A-Level results which is why the Clearing process is perceived to begin on A-Level results day. In fact, Clearing begins much earlier and lasts much longer as many students are waiting on International, Access, BTEC and National Diploma results which are released at varying times. GCSE results came out yesterday and there will be students who have had to retake English or Maths to gain the minimum ‘C’ grade needed for some courses. Universities will have no idea how many of their conditional offers will be taken up until all of these results are confirmed and the universities have been notified by the students themselves (or UCAS if they are A-Level results).

Many universities have raised their entry requirements to try to increase the ‘quality’ of students they recruit, not least because this impacts on the wider student experience for all students, but also because it leads to greater retention and progression, which in turn impacts income and league table performance.

Students apply to a particular university based on the entry requirements published, but when it comes to A-Level results, universities are guided by the ‘predictions’ from schools or colleges. Unfortunately, these are not always very accurate. At Birmingham City University, this year, we experienced greater inaccuracy in predictions than previous years, which is distressing for the students, but also means that we found ourselves with places to recruit in Clearing that would otherwise have been filled much earlier in the recruitment process as our applications have risen year on year over the last three years.

Academic Planning and Admissions departments have developed sophisticated conversion models at course level to try to predict the number of students who will progress in each of the scenarios above, but over the last two years we’ve seen very different behaviour in student conversion with conversion generally rising in each scenario. Nothing is certain and managing numbers has to be done on a daily basis at course level, which is why prospective students will see courses being moved ‘in and out’ of Clearing. It’s also why we are encouraging people to check the list of courses on our Clearing pages at www.bcu.ac.uk/clearing on a daily basis.

All in all, Clearing has become a lottery for everyone involved and the Government cap on numbers, as far as I can see, isn’t helping anyone.