Link-ups aim to cheer up the maze of confusion

Harriet Swain on how to make students' days more than a dull daze

Enrolment day at Oxford Brookes University holds no happy memories for Julie Corbin. "It was horrible,'' she said. "You had to turn up at an allotted time. I didn't know a single person. And you had to find your way through a maze of rooms. I didn't know which queue to stand in or who to ask."

Now, as a student link coordinator in the anthropology department, she helps make the experience more bearable for today's intakes.

It is all part of the university's efforts to reshape its policy of student support to make it more student-centred.

Alan Jenkins, at the university's centre for staff and learning development, said: "Most institutions are grappling with large numbers of students trying to do 500 things at once. One of the things under threat is guidance and support - particularly concerning the personal tutor system."

He said many institutions had modelled themselves on the Oxbridge pastoral system but recent changes in the sector had put this under threat by dramatically increasing the number of students per tutor.

Academics were also facing more demands on their time from administration and research.

Oxford Brookes has particular problems because of its intricate modular system. Mature students, who spend less time on campus, find it especially hard to feel they are fully part of the university.

Gerry Bolton, a student link coordinator in social sciences, said: "The modular system is good for flexibility but it can be difficult for students to understand. They can come away with a fragmentary experience of being a student." Under the student link scheme, run in anthropology and social sciences, each first-year is assigned a second or third-year student to guide them through the induction period and be on hand to help throughout the year.

Student link coordinators also organise social events and deal with academic and other problems, referring major difficulties to personal tutors or counsellors.

Over the first few weeks they organise tours of the university and the computer network.

They will help students decide what courses to take in the second year and advise them on negotiating the modular maze.

Doulla Simon, a sociology and educational studies mature student and guide, said: "All of us have had crisis points when we felt we couldn't cope and that is when this system really comes into its own." She said it helped mature students mix with the rest of the student body and brought together people from different backgrounds.

Tom Woolley, a senior lecturer in sociology, said: "There have been big changes in the character of the student population. People used to come straight from school, used to a learning environment and with all the skills they needed.

"When mature students started to arrive in large numbers we were delighted because it made the character of the place more heterogenous. But they also changed things in the nature of the problems they brought in."

These students needed more guidance around the university system and often faced greater personal problems in juggling their student and domestic lives, he said.

Asking students to lend a hand was part of the solution. But staff also had to rethink their ideas.

Oxford Brookes conducted a survey of staff which found most wanted to remain personal tutors. Nevertheless, it decided to give the system a thorough overhaul, moving the focus from teaching to learning and from problems to solutions.

This means students will have their performance reviewed at the end of every term and their progress systematically monitored.

They will also have to think about what they are learning, while they are learning it. For example, English students have kept reflexive diaries on their academic experiences.

Keith Cooper, head of student services, said students would be encouraged to draw up personal profiles, describing their existing skills, ultimate ambitions and expectations from the university.

These should eventually be made and modified electronically, which would save staff time. But some of the suggestions could actually increase the burden on personal tutors.

Mr Cooper said this could be solved through more group tutoring, with guest speakers - from business or recent graduates - advising students on the skills they should develop.

Eventually, some members of staff could become personal tutor specialists, relieved of other duties in order to concentrate on student support.

The aim is for students to leave university with more than a handful of facts in their chosen subject and the odd hazy memory of hall discos. Instead, hopefully, they will have a clear idea of what they have achieved from the experience and the skills they have gained for life.