Six team of students from the UK have won support to develop their ideas for digital solutions that will transform the future of education and improve the student experience.
The 'Summer of Student Innovation' competition was organised by Jisc, the organisation which champions the use of digital technologies in UK education and research. Winners will receive advice, technical support and funding from Jisc to help build their ideas into products and services.
Successful projects include a support tool to improve academic writing, an app for students to provide feedback and ratings on courses and lecturers, and an app which allows students to book computer equipment and space.
The first stage of the competition invited votes from the general public, and shortlisted project teams then went on to develop their concepts at a design sprint event, before pitching their idea to a panel of judges in the style of the ‘Dragons Den’ TV programme.
The six successful ideas are:
SALT: The Student's Academic Literacy Tool from the University of Teesside, a checklist and support tool for improving an individual’s standard of academic writing at university.
Coursemash from Imperial College London, an app where university students can compare their course options for the coming year, including getting feedback and ratings on lecturers, course structure and exams from former students.
Sports Covered App from Heart of Worcestershire College, which is designed to support vocational sports qualifications by outlining the basic rules and regulations, technical instructions and performance skills for a range of individual and team sports.
VoiceIt from Treloar College, an accessible app for students with learning disabilities where they can easily, independently and anonymously report any issues or concerns.
BrightHub App from Yeovil College which offers a social hub for students and staff to post resource content and subject videos and host discussions.
Zone Booking App from Swindon College which enables students to book computer equipment and space and easily check when facilities are available.
Paul Bailey, senior co-design manager at Jisc, praised the scalability of the successful teams' ideas. “We want them to help us to quickly take their ideas from the design stage and into development so that everyone can easily reap the benefits”.
Jisc is continuing to work with six projects from the previous two years of the Summer of Student Innovation competition, including: the University of Southampton's Unitu, a system to help universities structure and manage the feedback loop; language-learning app Lingoflow from Sussex Downs College; and the University of Nottingham's Call For Participants, an open platform where researchers can promote their studies and connect with participants.
More information here.