Reflections from being an Advisor for ELESIG Scholar Scheme

For 2023, in addition to several other committee roles in which I have been engaged in, I also registered to be part of the ELESIG Scholar Scheme 2023.

As a mentor, I regularly document my CPDs to encourage my mentees to engage in similar activities, either for them to learn new skills or simply to network with people outside their circle, I, therefore, provide in this blog:

• What the ELESIG Scholar Scheme is about?
• How I was involved in the Scholar Scheme?
• Will I do it again?
• What I think could be improved?

What the ELESIG Scholar Scheme is about?

The ELESIG Scholar Scheme is a scheme first piloted in 2021 by the Evaluations of Learners’ Experiences of e–Learning Special Interest Group.

There are three pathways in the pilot scheme:

1. Early-career professionals who would like to widen their professional network and develop a feasible professional development plan.
2. Mid-career professionals seeking to consolidate their skills and experience through developing an application for Senior CMALT or Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
3. Colleagues who would like to establish or better ground their publication practice and develop a publishing plan to disseminate their research.

After showing interest as an advisor, I was contacted in early August to commit to e-meet on the following dates:

• Introduction meeting – 20th Sep 2023 1 hr
• Workshop 1 – 20th Oct 2023 – 1 hr
• Workshop 2 – 17th Nov 2023 – 1 hr
• Workshop 3 – 15th Dec 2023 – 1 hr
• Wrap-up meeting – 26 Jan – 2hr

For the penultimate meeting, sadly there were some technical issues and I was left in the waiting room, I missed the wrap-up meeting as I was presenting at BETT.

How I was involved in the Scholar Scheme?

I was involved in the scheme as an advisor. Following the introduction meeting, advisors were paired with their scholars. I arranged for 1.5hr meetings with my allocated scholar. The scholar showed up for only one meeting, which I flagged to the organisers; so I cannot say I was able to exercise as an advisor, although I contributed to the other materials as part of the scheme.

Will I do it again?

The short answer is NO. I felt my time was wasted especially since my request to be re-assigned to another scholar was not acted upon.

What I think could be improved?

From my experience as a scholar, there are 2 angles that I believe must be definitely improved:

1. General logistics
   • The agenda kept running out of time during all the workshops. For subsequent runs of the scheme, the sessions need to be planned and structured more efficiently.
   • There should definitely be a guideline for advisors and scholars to work on. I had to set up my own log, however, all my effort was wasted as the scholar did not value my time. There should therefore be some form of commitment from the scholars. I did ask to be reassigned to a different scholar, but this did not come to fruition even after I provided my availability for a meeting with the organisers.
2. IT logistics
   • Miro was used during the workshops which was not the best tool for various reasons:
     • During the first workshop, a hearing-impaired scholar raised issues about not being able to be on Miro and read the captions on Zoom at the same time. This request was missed by the organising team, which meant the workshops were not fully inclusive.
     • Besides, Miro itself was probably not the best platform to use during a 1 hr workshop. It uses lots of bandwidth and I observed that during small group discussions, participants could not easily locate where on the page we were working on, as several groups were working on various parts simultaneously.
   • A discord space was created, but there was not much engagement on the platform, and many of my questions were left unanswered. A channel for advisors only would definitely have been useful.
   • Although the workshops were recorded, the recordings were not made available despite requesting for it.

Although scholar schemes are valuable, the ELESIG Scholar Scheme must definitely be redesigned to be more efficient.