How the University of Dundee’s School of Business found a silver lining in a turbulent year

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Out of great adversity, great opportunities can emerge. While no university has been immune to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the University of Dundee’s School of Business has found the silver lining in the dark cloud.  

“There was an amazing amount of change. Students and staff had to change and adapt to digital learning very quickly,” says Bill Russell, professor at the School of Business. “But it was also a moment when everyone came together. You could see the whole of the business school just gelling together as you went through the year. They realised this was something you couldn’t do on your own, you had to do it with your colleagues.”

The School of Business, which offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses across accounting and finance, economics, management and marketing, became an independent school six months before the pandemic hit. When in-person teaching became impossible, the school had to move quickly.

“We decided to go to blended and flipped learning,” says Professor Russell. “Blended learning is where you have material online in the cloud, like articles, books, background material and small videos from the lecturer about a particular topic. Flipping the classroom like this means that the student has a chance to go through and understand information before engaging with the lecturer.” 

One of the benefits of this approach is that students already know something about the topic before the live online class and feel empowered to contribute to the discussion. While Professor Russell found that students “overwhelmingly” liked this approach, it was important to engage regularly with their feedback during this time of great change.

The Dundee University Students’ Association, which oversees student feedback across the university, played a key role in gathering responses. To ensure students felt sufficiently supported during this stressful period, the School of Business also met regularly with programme representatives.

“It’s nice to have people say warm and fuzzy things about you, but the things that are really important are when students say ‘we are struggling with this’ or ‘this needs to change’,” says Professor Russell.

“We quickly realised we needed more contact with students, so we arranged weekly online meetings with our undergraduate, master’s and PhD students. We had students from all over the world attend and their feedback was gold dust for us. Because of Covid, we ramped up that interaction dramatically and we have seen the benefits, so that will continue going forward.”

Flexibility is a hallmark of the School of Business, which offers four-year honours degrees designed to give students options. Universities in Scotland typically allow students to study different subjects from within the same faculty in the first two years of their degree, before specialising in their third and fourth year. Following the Scottish model, the honours programme also allows international students to enter in the first, second or third year.

Seven programmes at the University of Dundee have a January intake for non-Scottish students, giving international students the option to complete a four-year course in three-and-a-half years. “There’s a lot of flexibility across the programmes and the students make good use of that. You might start in economics and move to business economics, for example,” says Professor Russell. “It’s set up to be flexible because someone’s idea of what their career is going to be often evolves. So locking people in is counterproductive.”

That focus on flexibility extends to the school’s new Master of Accounting degree, set to launch in January 2022. School of Business senior lecturer Alison Fordyce says that the intensive programme, aimed primarily at international students, will mean students study for 44 weeks of the year.

“It is innovative in that it’s a condensed three-year programme. Students can exit in year two with a BSc or they can go on and do the third year and come out with a Master of Accounting,” says Dr Fordyce.

A big selling point of the degree is the accreditation it provides with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the global professional accounting body. The ACCA helped design the programme, the only one of its kind available from a Scottish university.

“It means by the time students reach the end of year three, they’ve got accreditation for nine ACCA exams. They will be fully equipped and exam-ready for the two core subjects in ACCA’s Strategic Professional level, requiring them to pass only a further two ACCA Strategic Professional options to be ACCA exam-qualified,” says Dr Fordyce. “To develop yourself in a career, university is just the start of the journey. The professional accreditation is vital.”

School of Business students also have the benefit of three active societies. Established in 1967, Dundee University Business Society organises a series of social and professional events, as well as the successful “academic families” mentor programme. There is also an Investment Society dedicated to portfolio management and a Marketing Society. “University is about having a universal education. It’s about not just learning about your subject, but getting involved in all these societies and learning how to meet people,” says Dr Fordyce.

As the rules on social distancing evolve, the School of Business will determine whether its teaching will return to the university’s city centre campus. However, the School of Business will keep the most popular elements of the blended model.

“It’s been a really impressive change. Universities are typically slow-moving but the university and the School of Business have responded quickly,” says Professor Russell. “A lot of the innovations and changes that were piloted and developed in the School of Business became standard across the university. A lot of that flipped learning and the use of technology will stay moving forward because lots of benefits have come out of it.”

about the University of Dundee’s School of Business.