The University of South Wales Launches MyProgress

The University of South Wales is a relatively new institution, formed in 2013. The forward-thinking university has won the title ‘Cyber University of the Year’ for the last three years at the National Cyber awards (2019-2021).

This modern approach to learning can be seen across departments, with hands-on experience and partnerships with industry leaders made a priority. As a result, USW boasts an impressive 95% of graduates in full-time work or further study within six months.

The School of Care Sciences is part of the Faculty of Life Sciences and Education, and offers the following areas of study; Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Sciences.

The institution’s focus on hands-on experience is evident in The School of Care Sciences, with students rehearsing their skills in an environment that recreates the workplace thanks to the on-campus hospital ward, then practicing them while out on placements in real healthcare environments.

The University of South Wales  runs several professionally regulated courses that require workplace-based learning. Students are required to attend practice learning experiences where they are assessed in a variety of healthcare environments by registrants. This assessment accounts for 50% of the programme and summatively examines student competence, knowledge, attitude, interpersonal skill and resilience.

To date, the school has recorded the student’s clinical progression in a paper-based portfolio which is cumbersome, costly and difficult to administer with around 1500 students in approximately 4000 practice learning experiences per year. 

Going forward, the school wanted to find a more effective way of managing and administering such an important part of the curriculum.

The key objective of the e-portfolio is to make the monitoring of the students’ progression through the course more efficient and effective. The current paper-based portfolio is costly to produce and administer, with academics devoting time to update the portfolio and review files individually at the end of each term/progression point. 

A live, integrated online solution would be cost effective in the medium to long term as student progression would be highlighted at key strategic points through notifications and batch review would streamline the process of monitoring and recording student progression.  

In addition, the solution must also:

• Have full GDPR compliance

• Be a cloud-based solution to remove issues with NHS firewalls

• Support integration with the University Placement System (ARC)

• Be able to be operated offline as well as online

• Include a comprehensive on-screen help function

• Support the saving & editing of draft work

• Allow students to be able to track progress & clearly see progression points

• Allow students to be able to download their ePortfolio upon graduation

In response, MyKnowledgeMap's MyProgress ePortfolio was selected and implemented, with the main purpose of recording portfolio activities for nursing courses. The solution is also adaptable so that it can be configured to provide an ePortfolio service for the full spectrum of courses delivered at USW at a later date.

How MyProgress supports USW:

• Fully GDPR compliant

• It is a cloud-based solution and hosted on Microsoft Azure

• Supports integration with the University Placement System (ARC)

• The mobile app works off-line and supports the completion of all forms/assessments, and these will synchronise when WIFI or a strong mobile signal is available

• Supports the saving & editing of draft work; any template can be saved as a draft by the user completing it, and it can be updated as many times as required before final submission and saved as a draft multiple times along the way

• MyProgress allows the setting up of key milestones or processes, e.g., orientation, initial interview, progress review, reflections, feedback. Institutions can set rules around when and how these should be completed. Where these processes have been set up, each objective is separated as a separate item for tracking and reporting so that students and practice supervisors/assessors can see progress and milestones achieved.

• When users complete or leave their programme, they are able to download all their PAD activities and documentation in PDF format. There is also a spreadsheet export which is available containing all the user’s PAD materials.

Nursing students at The University of South Wales have now been using the MyProgress for a couple of years. The solution has proven so effective that USW is now rolling it out to another four disciplines; Midwifery, ODP, Occupational Therapy, and Physiotherapy.

Discover how MyProgress can support your programme, book a demo here.