www.thecourieronline.co.uk Monday 25 February 2013 Issue 1266 Free
ELECTIONS PULL-OUT INSIDE EVERY CANDIDATE, EVERY BALLOT, EVERY MANIFESTO
‘Engagement monitoring’ set up after biometrics cut •
Measures attendance and Blackboard visits
•
System to comply with UKBA regulations
RAG: Some things never change
News p.5
The University is in the process of deciding which measures it will use to constitute the ‘engagement monitoring’ system it hopes to implement next September. ‘Engagement monitoring’ allows the University to gauge how regularly a student is ‘actively engaging’ with their degree by looking at measures such as attendance at teaching hours, visits to Blackboard and the number of books borrowed from the library. A range of measures are currently being considered by the University but attendance will likely be monitored through the use of smartcard scanning. This is a departure from previous University proposals that favoured a biometric fingertip scan, which were met
gaged with their course on the full-time basis that their visa requires. Speaking to The Courier, Dr John Hogan, the University’s Registrar said: “The whole [Higher Education] sector has been concerned about compliance with the UKBA, it’s a relatively new organisation. And there’s two sides to it really. One, the controls they want to see in place before students are admitted to this country. These include things like visa requirements, evidence of English language qualifications and academic qualifications. “The second thing they are focused on, quite heavily, is that when a student is admitted to study in this country, on perfectly legitimate grounds, are they continuing to study?” Hogan explained that in order to retain their license the University must report any non-EU students who have
with opposition by various members of the student body and academic faculty. In December, the Students’ Union held a referendum which saw students vote against the use of biometrics with 1,206 votes to 320 in favour. Turnout was 7.3% which represented a historical high for a vote of that kind despite less than one in ten students participating. The adoption of ‘engagement monitoring’ comes in response to UKBA requirements surrounding attendance monitoring of non-EU students. The University is required to comply with such requirements if it is to keep its license that permits it to enrol nonEU students. These UKBA requirements have arisen as a result of last year’s London Met scandal. This saw the University stripped of its license, in part, because it failed to provide sufficient evidence that its non-EU students were actually en-
“ceased to study”. And the University believes that the best way of determining this is through the concept of ‘engagement monitoring’. Hogan also explained why the University believes the ‘engagement monitoring’ system should incorporate all students and not just the non-EU students that UKBA requires. “So far we have treated all students as the same but there are arguments either way. Some say we should split it because the workload would be much less. However, it is not going to look great if we operate a policy in every lecture that says: ‘All those not from the EU please sign in now.’” He also said that the pastoral responsibilities belonging to the University apply equally to both EU and non-EU students and that the ‘engagement monitoring’ system would better help them continued on page 4
By George Sandeman News Editor
“It is not going to look great if we operate a policy in every lecture that says: ‘All those not from the EU please sign in now’. ”