Jisc will provide expert advice, technical support and funding to help build the ideas into products and services. The support is being offered through its Summer of Student Innovation competition, which asks learners to suggest new technologies and apps to improve the student experience.
Having already made it through first stage of the competition via votes from the general public, the students were invited to develop their concepts at a design sprint during the summer, before pitching their idea to a panel of judges ‘Dragons Den’ style.
The successful ideas are:
• SALT: The Student’s Academic Literacy Tool from the University of Teesside, a checklist and support tool for improving an individual’s standard of academic writing at university
• Coursemash from Imperial College London, an app where university students can compare their course options for the coming year, including getting feedback and ratings on lecturers, course structure and exams from former students
• Sports Covered App, Heart of Worcestershire College, designed to support learners on vocational sports qualifications by outlining the basic rules and regulations, technical instructions and performance skills for a range of individual and team sports
• VoiceIt from Treloar College, an accessible app for students with learning disabilities where they can easily, independently and anonymously report any issues or concerns
• BrightHub App, Yeovil College, which offers a social hub for students and staff to post resource content and subject videos and host discussions
• Zone Booking App from Swindon College, allowing students to book computer equipment and space and easily check when facilities are available
Paul Bailey, senior co-design manager at Jisc, said: “Three years of running the Summer of Student Innovation has shown us how wonderfully creative students can be in coming up with solutions to some of the big challenges they’re encountering in learning and student life.
“What all of the successful teams have brought to us are scalable ideas that have the potential to create a positive impact at other colleges and universities. We want them to help us to quickly take their ideas from the design stage and into development so that everyone can easily reap the benefits. We look forward to working with the students in the next phase.”