Students as co-creators

Moore, Emma, Eastwood, Jonathan, Lovell, Mandy, Ross, Sam, Selwood, Anna, Tse, Jasmin, Cliff, Katie, Salinas, Carolina, Spalek, Jan, Lowe, Tom, Heard-Laureote, Karen, Valentine, Jill, Couch, Stefan, Coney, Keren, Oxley, Laura, Smith, Helen, Murray, Kate, Emsley-Jones, Carly, Colley-Foster, Becka, Adams, Clare, Brammar, Laura, Bargery, Andrew, Yates, Julia and Brookes, Sarah 2022. Students as co-creators. AGCAS Journal Phoenix: Students as co-creators (164) , pp. 38-39.

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Abstract

In this issue of Phoenix, you can read how university careers services are working with students as partners to co-create and deliver careers and employability provision as part of wider institutional efforts to enhance the student experience. Often working in collaboration with learning and teaching colleagues and representatives from Students’ Unions, AGCAS members have created the infrastructure and mechanisms to enable students to work as equals and make truly meaningful contributions to service delivery. In many university careers services, students have played an active role at both an operational and strategic level for many years – and AGCAS members are building on these long-standing foundations to further embed the spirit of collaboration. For others, engaging students as co-creators in service delivery, to tackle new challenges or seek new solutions to old challenges, is newer territory. And then there are others walking a different path, reimagining their service model entirely by placing students on the front line of peer-to-peer delivery. Regardless of where AGCAS members are on this journey, over the following pages you can read how fostering an authentic environment of student inclusivity and actively dialling-up the student voice is helping to break down barriers to engagement, demystify careers and employability support, extend reach and relevance, and spark innovation. The repositioning of students as partners, rather than consumers or customers, is not altogether new. However, Covid-19 and the post-pandemic fallout has placed renewed focus on reimagining the student experience: in the development of service provision students want to be spoken with, not spoken about; provision should be shaped with students, not simply for students. True partnership with students transcends the reductive tick-box exercise of simply seeking ‘student feedback’. The benefits of co-creation to both students and careers services alike are compelling. For careers services, it’s being able to hear the truth about initiatives and strategies as they are being formed, capitalising on opportunities to implement changes to service delivery in direct response to student input. From the student perspective, empowerment, inclusivity and relatability run through this issue like golden threads. Many of the articles featured in this issue speak of students’ sense of belonging and how this has been strengthened as a direct result of shaping or receiving careers support that originated from authentic co-creation. In universities throughout the UK, students are bringing fresh insights to help ensure careers provision remains agile, inclusive and effective to meet the needs of the 21st century student body. Ever conscious of the challenges ahead, careers and employability professionals will continue to tap into and harness the student talent that exists to better understand what the current and future generation of students need – not what we think they need. Ultimately, it is the act of combining students’ insights with careers professionals’ expert knowledge that will help students realise their career aspirations and fulfil their potential.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Academic & Student Support Service
Related URLs:	Publisher
Date of Acceptance:	14 October 2022
Last Modified:	20 Dec 2024 13:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173043

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