Project Directory 22-23

Summary

This project aims to redesign the first DMF1 summer workshop activity. The  redesigned summer term course should:

• be more integrated and active to increase inclusion,
• be reorganised in terms of delivery and timetabling by benign technologically enhanced, to boost engagement,
• have a friendly competition element to improve student peer learning and innovation,
• address topics that have not been extensively explored (additive manufacturing).

The students will work in partnership alongside academics, technical staff, and suppliers to create a specification and detailed description for the summer term course that has been developed as a team, but primarily driven by the students themselves. A first-year student will provide insight to the student experience, run surveys, and link the design content to relevant modules such as stress and materials. A third-year student will be primarily responsible for designing the practical aspects of the activity, including identifying suppliers, mechanical design, and planning.

Project Lead

Alexis Ihracska (a.ihracska@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Mechanical Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Two positions available; one first year or second year Mech Eng student, and one third year respectively.  For six weeks full-time during Summer break.  

 Redesigning of First year Summer workshop recruitment ad

Summary

Generative artificial intelligence, as made available through tools such as ChatGPT, is likely to be used widely in educational settings, employment and wider society. Universities including Imperial and still determining how best to respond to this technology. During this project, the two student partners will collaborate with the staff partner to conduct some small-scale research tasks and to construct best practice guidelines regarding how artificial intelligence can be used ethically and appropriately for teaching and assessment at Imperial (and in STEMM subjects more widely). The student partners will help to co-design the research and will benefit from working on an area of topical interest across the sector. This project is most suited to student partners with interests in academic integrity, conducting research and using emerging technologies. There may be the opportunity for student partners to present the outcomes of this project internally and externally.

Project Lead

Thomas Lancaster (t.lancaster@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Computing

Further Details/Experience Required

Undergraduate students from any department.  Full-time for five weeks during Summer term.  Two positions available.  

Teaching and assessment in an artificial intelligence world recruitment ad

Summary

This project aims to look in depth at the first-year geoscience field module, a 2-week summer residential course in South Spain run by Department of Earth Science and Engineering, from a mental and physical health perspective. The fieldwork, which introduce students to fieldwork for the first time, combines previously classroom taught concepts with real-life geological settings, focusing on data collection, problem solving, the development of core geological skills and independence of learning. In addition, as a residential course, it places students together for a prolonged period in shared spaces allowing the development of key social skills and cooperation within the student body. However, from feedback, we know the student experience, for both neurotypical and neurodivergent individuals, it can be daunting in the lead-up and overwhelming and/or exhausting while in the field.

Students (up to 3 in number) partaking in this project will in the first 2-weeks undertake research on current best practice (i.e., inclusivity, mental and physical health) and how these map to the current field course. During this initial period the students will identify areas of research that they can take ownership of. The results of this will inform the latter half of the project, the remaining 2 weeks, which will involve synthesising the information and producing a detailed group led report. The report will breakdown the issues identified and ascertaining what (if any) others may exist, detail what processes and procedures are already in place (if applicable), and finally consider what modifications to the module are recommended following the identified best practice. Staff will support the students during the project with regular progress meetings and group sessions. The collaboration will also be very insightful for both staff and the students involved. As throughout the project’s duration all parties will gain novel insight and construct bespoke solutions, that balances the needs and requirements of the course, with the welfare and experience of the students.

The outcomes from this project will help give a foundation for future students to have an improved physical and mental health experience during the fieldtrip. These are both prerequisites for good learning and will help increase the number of students that will see their first fieldtrip experience as a memorable and happy. Moreover, the impacts of the project are longer-term as any recommendations and modifications made, unless very negatively viewed by students or staff, are likely to carry through over multiple trip iterations. Additionally, as these will be derived from current best practice, as identified from the projects research phase, these recommendations have a wider scope to improve the higher-level field courses run in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering.

Project Lead

Alan Spencer, (alan.spencer@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Strategic Teaching Fellow, Earth Science and Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

All students interested in Fieldwork physical and mental health.  Three positions available.  

Four weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Geoscience field course recruitment ad

Summary

The key aims of this project are to engage collaboratively with student partners to:

1. Develop and improve the ESE Virtual Microscope (e.g., possibility to see the entire thin section and digitalize thin sections at high-resolution)
2. Create a library of digitalized thin sections of rocks to be implemented into ESERC.
3. Make a description of what can be observed on every digitalized thin sections.

This project cannot be undertaken without a collaborative effort between Valentin Laurent, Matt Genge, Alan Spencer and the student partners. Valentin and Matt were involved in the development of the first version of the ESE Virtual Microscope and teach the Igneous and Metamorphic Geology course while Alan has expertise on how to implement the digitalized material in ESERC. The students are absolutely the best-placed people to bring their experience on how a Virtual Microscope can improve the delivery of specific modules and more generally the degree, having experienced it first-hand.

The collaboration will start by establishing a list of modules that would benefit from using the Virtual Microscope and then a list of the samples and thin sections to be digitalized for each module.

After undertaking some practical training on how to digitalize thin sections with Matt and Valentin and on how to implement the digitalized materials in ESERC with Alan, the students will take the lead in digitalizing the thin sections themselves and create a library of digitalized thin sections of rock in ESERC. The team will then work in partnerships to select the specific areas of a thin section that can be digitalized at high-resolution and on how to describe these thin sections. This approach has several benefits for the students who will have full input into the content, shaped by their recent experience of the course and what they found most difficult. They will also gain important practical and transferable skills in petrology and digital teaching.

Project Lead

Valentin Laurent (v.laurent@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow in Pedagogic Transformation, Earth Science and Engineering.  

Further Details/Experience Required

Year 2 and Year 3 ESE students – must have previously completed the Optical Mineralogy and Igneous & Metamorphic Geology module.  Two positions available.  

Four weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Virtual Microscope recruitment ad

Summary

Work is ongoing to make the Mech Eng learning experience more inclusive for diverse groups of students. We need students to work in partnership with us to make this happen. The two projects below are suggested, but student-proposed ideas will also be considered:

• Project 1: Alternative histories and geographies: Currently all scientists mentioned in our lectures are white men – Gauss, Fourier, Newton, Bayes etc. Work is needed to identify if there are diverse role models (with different protected characteristics like disability, gender and race) that we can talk about when we are teaching, to contribute positively to the sense of belonging and self-efficacy for female and racially minoritised students.
• Project 2. Maths explainer videos: We need to create short explainer videos on maths topics or questions that are troublesome and are frequently asked about in tutorials. Some students prefer learning from videos as they can pause and rewind if necessary, so these resources will support these students with different learning styles.

In project 1 the student partner will gain experience reviewing existing literature, talking to the librarians, interviewing subject experts and report-writing. In project 2 the student partner will gain experience surveying students and tutors to identify relevant topics and questions, typesetting beautiful maths in latex, and creating short videos with the help of the college’s digital media lab.

Project Lead

Linda Stringer (l.stringer@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Mechanical Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Mech Eng students in years 1-3.  Other students will be considered if they demonstrate passion for the project.  

Six weeks full-time during Summer break.  Two positions available.

Making Mech Eng more inclusive recruitment ad

Summary

This is an exciting opportunity to consider how we can best integrate prescribing teaching into the Primary Care courses of the medical curriculum. Recent student feedback has highlighted that students want more prescribing teaching integrated throughout the undergraduate medical curriculum. We propose to review and map prescribing teaching across the current medical curriculum from a primary care perspective, with the aim to understand the current offering and identify areas to develop new prescribing initiatives aimed at improving student learning and better preparing students for clinical practice. Following this scoping and mapping exercise, we will co-develop innovation(s) to help address gaps identified and further enhance any current teaching offered.

Project Lead

Felicity Lalloo (f.lalloo@imperial.ac.uk), Clinical Teaching Fellow in Primary Care

Further Details/Experience Required

Students enrolled on the MBBS in years 3,4,5 and 6 are eligible to apply.  Part-time for six months/26 weeks in total.  
Prescribing recruitment ad

Summary

This project will involve one Student Shaper working collaboratively with the Undergraduate Primary Care Education primary team, and will provide the opportunity to:

• Have an active role in adapting current module materials and shape the future of the GPPHC module curriculum and assessment
• Co-create a more inclusive assessment for future GPPHC students, drawing on a range of creative approaches to allow for deeper and more impactful and meaningful reflection

Through participation of this project, you will not only have a unique experience of curriculum development, but will also develop your leadership, prioritisation, and teamwork skills, working within a supportive team. Once implemented, there is scope to evaluate any new assessments, and we would plan to share innovative work through this project through possible publications and/or conference presentations.

Project Lead

Neepa Thacker (n.thacker@imperial.ac.uk), Year 5 General Practice and Primary Health Care Course Lead, School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

Students enrolled on Year 5 and 6 of the MBBS are eligible.  One position available.  Part-time for 16 weeks until May.  

Phase 3a GPPHC module recruitment ad

Summary

Student opinion and engagement is essential to understanding the barriers faced by students in Phase 2 and will be key to the success of this project. You will work closely with an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Education Fellow, as well as the wider ICSM EDI team. You will be involved in development of questionnaires for staff and students, development of focus group questions, facilitation of sensitive discussions in focus groups and evaluation of the answers. You will also be involved in analysis of differential outcomes data, to see if there is an awarding gap between students with specific characteristics.

Your opinion as a student with regards to the content, delivery and facilitation of the project will be crucial. You will develop skills in qualitative evaluation, which will provide an excellent starting point for future medical education research. You will also gain experience in EDI, understanding the diverse needs of the student body and how this can be facilitated to achieve equitable academic success.

Project Lead

Nainesha Kulkarni, Education Fellow (EDI) (n.kulkarni@imperial.ac.uk) 

Further Details/Experience Required

Two students undergoing the MBBS, ideally Phase 2-3 Medical students.  

Part-time during term-time for 30 weeks (until June 2023)

Equitable assessment experience recruitment ad

Summary

Digital health curriculum development is starting across Imperial’s medical school, including in our undergraduate primary care education unit.department There will be new digital health sessions in the next academic year. This is therefore an ideal time for a student shaper to get involved, as they will be able to make significant contributions to shape the curriculum. 

The student will be co-designing the overall approach for teaching digital health in four key areas: remote consultations, artificial intelligence, patient generated data and electronic patient records. Their expertise in their lived experience as students of unmet digital health teaching needs, as well as strategies for delivering such teaching, would be highly valued. Faculty will meet with the student regularly to ensure they feel supported in this partnership and the goals are being met.

The ideal student would have a curiosity about those four key areas of digital health, and be passionate about co-designing content that is engaging and accessible to our diverse cohort of Phase 1 and 3 medical students. It would be ideal if the student also had some content creation skills (such as digital/traditional artwork, video/podcast creation, data visualisation skills, basic to intermediate coding skills and social media engagement strategies). 

Project Lead

Viral Thakerar (v.thakerar@imperial.ac.uk), Patients, Communities and Healthcare GP Course Lead

Further Details/Experience Required

Nine weeks working part-time during term-time.  One position available.  

Co-Creating a Digital Health Curriculum recruitment ad

Summary

The project consists of the development of scenario-based teaching resources to educate medical students about inappropriate behaviour, microaggressions, unconscious bias as well as equipping them with some tools and techniques to deal with and/or respond to incidences of inappropriate behaviour from patients on their clinical placements. This will be embedded into the longitudinal Professional Values and Behaviours domain in the MBBS course. Separate projects are ongoing to address the additional EDI training needs of staff involved in teaching and assessing ICSM students.

A survey will be sent to the medical student body to obtain their input in designing the resources. Within the survey, students will be given the opportunity to join focus groups and/or 1-2-1 sessions to provide more in-depth contributions. An initial draft of the student survey has been produced. A literature review has already been completed.

The Student Shapers will collaborate closely with Dr Tunmise Ashaye (EDI Education Fellow) to:

• Refine the student survey (December – Jan 2023)
• Assist with the dissemination of the survey and raising awareness of the survey within the medical student body (Jan – Feb 2023)
• Assist with facilitating the focus groups and 1-2-1 interviews (March – April 2023)
• Analyse the data from the surveys, focus groups and interviews. Develop the teaching resources.  Produce a report summarising the methodology used and the outputs (May – June 2023)

Project Lead

 Dr Tunmise Ashaye, (o.ashaye@imperial.ac.uk) EDI Teaching Fellow

Further Details/Experience Required

Two students undergoing the MBBS, ideally Phase 1C, 2 or 3 Medical students.  Part-time during term-time for approximately six months.  

 Inappropriate behaviour in clinical placement recruitment ad

Summary

 Topics covered within the PVB domain can vary hugely depending on the topic. This collaborative project will be focussed on the Professional Identity and behaviours subdomains, where topics such as resilience, wellbeing, reflective practice, touch in clinical practice and integrity and honesty are explored. However, as part of the partnership, if students would like to explore other elements of PVB this can be discussed and arranged depending on their interests.

The successful candidates would work in partnership with the Domain leads Dr Mezher-Sikafi and Dr Ryan, and with our clinical teaching fellows. We will use tools for anonymous reflection to build the plan for the project together. Students will have ownership of what they want to develop. Suggested directions for the project could include the use of audio-visual methods to develop peer to peer resources that help engage students. Or integrating modern digital learning technologies such as ‘Ed Discussion’ into the PVB teaching.  This can be either for GOL's, lectures or small group work in the Phase 1 PVB curriculum.

Last year, our student shapers presented at our tutor training event, helping shape the way that small group facilitation was delivered this academic year. We would hope to include them in this excellent teaching and learning opportunity again this year.

Project Lead

Rasha Mezher-Sifaki (r.mezher-sikafi@imperial.ac.uk), Domain Lead (PIB), School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

Medical students who are in Phase 1c.  4 weeks full time during Summer break.  Two positions available.  

PVB recruitment ad

Summary

Are you interested in developing your creative skills whilst learning more about educational development in medicine?

Apply to be a Student Shaper with us, the LMAP team, to develop the use of 'Ed Discussion' as a tool to enrich student experience!

Student Shapers will collaborate on identifying areas for quality improvement and applying creative approaches to addressing these. Activities may include discussion and planning meetings, survey design, technical platform adaptation, and/or content creation.

Students engaging in this project will have the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills including:

• communication
• insight gathering and analysis
• technology development
• presenting

Students will also be able to develop their professional network by working with faculty on this project!

Project Lead

Nileema Patel (nileema.patel@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow in Lifestyle Medicine and Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

MBBS students in Phase 1a or b.  For ten weeks during term-time, part-time.  3 positions available 

Ed Discussion recruitment ad

Summary

The I-Explore STEMM Module “Creating Evidence-Based Solutions to Environmental Pollution and Health” has run for the first time this academic year. During the project you will acquaint yourself with the content of the module and subsequently research and develop methods alongside staff to make the organisation of the online content and workshop delivery more efficient. You will then work on designing a platform for iterative evaluation and improvement for future cohorts. Additionally, students and staff will be working together to investigate possibilities to adapt the module for postgraduate study.

Key benefits for students:

• The opportunity to explore methods of student-driven learning, enhance your experiences of higher education delivery and promote peer engagement and support by collaborating with leading academics in environmental research.
• The opportunity to earn financially by providing invaluable consultation and working with a range of partners for your personal development.

Project Lead

Leon Barron (leon.barron@imperial.ac.uk), Reader in Analytical and Environental Science, Ruthie Parson (r.parsons21@imperial.ac.uk), Research Postgraduate, School of Public Health, and Hanbin Zhang (h.zhang@imperial.ac.uk), Early Career Research Fellow, School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

Three positions available.  

We are looking for three students who are preferably alumni of, or students currently undertaking, the I-Explore STEMM Module “Creating Evidence-Based Solutions to Environmental Pollution and Health”. We are open to other students who can justify the rationale for application.

Seven weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Environmental Pollution and Health recruitment ad

Summary

The BSc Medical Biosciences (BMB) programme was designed to utilise the principles of blended teaching and flipped classrooms to enhance students' learning experience, deepen their understanding of the subject material, develop creative and critical thinking, and gain transferrable skills that prepare them for future careers. To support students in the aforementioned areas we have developed an academic and study skills module (ASK) that covers key topics associated with student learning and assessment and includes feedback literacy sessions. The main aim of the project is to create student-focused content to provide pragmatic support in the student’s current academic life and beyond BMB.

Student and staff partners will evaluate the ASK module virtual content on MedLearn and collaborate to:

1. Assess the applicability and benefit of the current ASK topics and their related activities to effectively support student learning.
2. Identify ASK topics that need improving and topics that need to be created de novo to enhance student learning.
3. Discuss and identify face-to-face activities which would support learning and assessment, promote students’ engagement, and peer-to-peer support.

Any student who has experienced learning and assessment in BMB should have a good understanding of how the ASK material can be further developed to improve students’ academic experience. Student partners will have an opportunity to reflect on resources that enhance the student learning journey on the BMB programme and directly contribute to curriculum development for both current and future BMB students. Participation in this project also provides an opportunity for collaboration across different year groups (Y1 and Y2) with teachers and learning technologists, exchange ideas and provide insight based on different perspectives and experiences. In addition, student partners will be able to develop their digital skills as training will be provided to create and modify content on MedLearn, a widely used content management system for BMB.

Project Lead

Manuela Mura (manuela.mura1@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Further Details/Experience Required

Six positions available.  Ideally recruiting three student partners from Year 1 and 2 each, for representation.  

12.5 consecutive days on a full-time basis from the 5th of July (half day) to the 21st of July

ASK recruitment ad

Summary

The Lived Experience Project (LEX) consists of a mini docuseries which focusses on bringing Lived Experience of Social Exclusion into the undergraduate medical curriculum. The production of 17 short videos following two Experts by Experience was completed in the academic year 2021/2022 and has since been introduced into the Lifestyle Medicine and Prevention module. The LEX project was originally created as a student-staff collaborative initiative, and it is important to us that in this next stage of the process we continue to take a collaborative, co-production approach.

The next steps in the development of the LEX project include evaluation and wide-spread integration of the project into the MBBS curriculum. Student Shapers will be involved in both planning and actioning in this next phase.

Activities may include discussion and planning meetings, mapping exercises, organisation of focus groups, analysis of qualitative data, written and verbal presentations.

The successful candidates will have the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills including:

• communication
• partnership working
• data analysis
• influencing
• presenting

We value diversity on our team and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that students with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the application process. Please contact us to request adjustment.

Due to commence in April 2023; exact start dates to be arranged between staff and student partners.

Project Lead

Molly Donovan (m.donovan@imperial.ac.uk), LMAP Teaching Fellow

Further Details/Experience Required

MBBS students in Phase 1c and/or Phase 2.  Three positions available.  10 weeks working part-time

 LEX Recruitment ad

Summary

Activities will include reviewing and developing material for guided online learning and any associated live or asynchronous pilot teaching sessions (e.g., simulation-based learning) through content creation, discussion and planning meetings or workshops, and/or insight gathering from student, junior doctor, and faculty stakeholders.

Students will have the opportunity to develop skills and knowledge in areas such as:

• leadership
• creativity
• communication
• partnership working

and develop their professional network by working with faculty!

Student contributions will be recognised through co-authorship on materials developed.

Project Lead

Nileema Patel (nileema.patel@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow in Lifestyle Medicine and Public Health, School of Public Health

Richard Pinder (richard.pinder@imperial.ac.uk), Director of Undergraduate Public Health Education

Noreen Ryan (noreen.ryan@imperial.ac.uk) Quality Healthcare Domain Lead, School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

MBBS students in Phase !B, IC, 2 or 3.  3 positions available.  

10 weeks part-time from April onwards.  

Leadership in Health recruitment ad

Summary

Our Stories will be a collaborative project between faculty and students, building a series of facilitated conversations between a member of faculty and a member of the student body. Conversations between faculty members and students who have volunteered to share their stories will be conducted and recorded. 

The conversations will focus on experiences of identity and inclusion. The aim is to foster a greater sense of community and minimise isolation and harassment experienced by minoritized groups. These are not medicine specific issues. This project is interested in hearing from anyone who might have felt unrepresented by mainstream culture, including for example members of the LGBTQIA community, neuro-diverse members of the community, those with disability and those who are racially minoritized.  

In addition, the purpose of this project is to evaluate the impact of the series of dialogues/conversations on students' and faculty's sense of belonging in the medical school, their understanding of diversity concerns, and their comfort level in discussing diversity issues.

Project Activities

You will work closely with an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Education Fellow, as well as the wider ICSM EDI team. You will be involved in co-designing of the audio-visual recordings, how the full interviews should operate, the content of the conversation and the preparation of briefing sessions prior to participant recordings. You will also be involved in the development of questionnaires and focus group questions for students.

You will develop skills in creativity, content creation and interpersonal communication. You will also gain experience in EDI, a deeper knowledge of sense of belonging and understanding the diversity of the student body and faculty.

Project Lead

Christopher Harvey (c.harvey@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Strategic Fellow, School of Public Health

Aneesa Fazal (a.fazal@imperial.ac.uk), Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Education Fellow, Faculty of Medicine Centre

Further Details/Experience Required

MBBS students in Phase 1.  Two positions available.  

Thirty three weeks part-time during term-time, from May onwards to the following May. 

Our Stories recruitment ad 

Summary

We will co-work together to refine and readapt an 8-bit pixel-style sandbox game of different versions, to 1) add more pop culture references; 2) script a stronger plot to make the game more engaging; 3) connect the ‘fictional’ game part and ‘science’ part to allow deep learning; 4) pilot different platform of the sandbox game on a more interactive platform (e.g. an online or software game); 5) experiment with different versions of the game to support teaching with more flexibility, for example, 2-day, a week or even a term; 6) make the game more inclusive. Students partners in this project have two opportunities to experiment this game in real teaching environment and improve the game design.

Project Lead

Hanbin Zhang (h.zhang@imperial.ac.uk), Early Career Research Fellow, School of Public Health

Further Details/Experience Required

7 weeks full-time during Summer break.  Three positions available.  

Any UG game lovers who are eager to turn classroom teaching into a game. You might have experiences in designing games, programming games, scripting, music production, or simply PLAYING different types of games. Students with graphic design abilities and game-oriented programming skills are highly encouraged to apply.

Environmental Education game recruitment ad

Summary

As part of our Emerging Technologies unit, we are seeking students who are interested in engaging and participating with us as partners to develop new group projects. Our current projects include a self-watering garden, a PCR machine, or a spectrophotometer, but we are now looking for students to conceptualize and develop a device for automating or improving various kitchen processes.

We want you to use your unique position to conceptualize, develop and test a new mini project in partnership with the Chemical Kitchen and Chemistry teaching staff, drawing on the technological and culinary experience. We will introduce you to the teaching rationale behind the courses, listen to industry partners, and ideate novel projects. You will be then given a budget to source parts and ingredients, and design and build a prototype project. We will work with you as partners to achieve the goal by facilitating regular meetings and supporting you with hands-on ad-hoc meetings to troubleshoot, brainstorm and solve emerging problems.

As an outcome, you will prepare a prototype project outline with a proposed viable solution, which then will be used as a basis to be refined and revised to produce a final version to be implemented in the AY 23/24.

Project Lead

Jakub Radzikowski (j.radzikowski@imperial.ac.uk), Culinary Education Designer, Chemistry

Further Details/Experience Required

3rd year Chemistry students who will be continuing in to a 4th year. 

Four weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Emerging Technology Lab recruitment ad

Summary

Across all STEM disciplines in UK Higher Education Institutes, academic professionals encounter multi-level barriers to their success. Several challenges disproportionately affect under-represented groups, such as women, resulting in a higher rate of their loss (“leaking”) from the academic pipeline before reaching more senior roles. This project is interested in examining student’s perceived barriers to an academic/profession career and how these change across the academic pipeline from UG to PGR. Most of the research into the leaky pipeline attempts to highlight, understand, explain, fix, and traverse the barriers, but very little is conducted from the student perspective, for example, when do the perceived barriers to an academic career become gendered?

Collaborating with students is at the heart of this project to co-develop a questionnaire, an ethics application, formulate a qualitative data analysis strategy and produce a recommendations report. We hope the project will highlight the perceived barriers of student cohorts and groups to enact change in education and equality, diversity, and inclusion actions and policies.

Project Lead

Josh Hodge (j.hodge@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow of Quantitative Life Sciences, Life Sciences

Further Details/Experience Required

Life Science students.  2 UG students, 1 Masters part-time student and 1 PhD part-time student.  

A combination of term-time and full-time, between April and October.  

Perceived Barriers to Career Progression recruitment ad

Summary

This is an opportunity to be involved in the design and rollout of a new cross-platform application with the twin objectives of facilitating effective action towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and students’ self-development. Currently, the Change Makers modules offered within the Imperial Horizons programme feature a range of tools, practices, frameworks and methodologies that can build the capacity of students to further sustainable development and their own skillset.  We aim to facilitate wider access and more effective use of these tools for the student body at Imperial College by placing them on an interactive cross-platform app.

As a student partner involved in this project, you will learn more about a range of Change Makers tools. The interactive platform will enable partners in their independent leadership of activities with other students outside the formal classroom space.  Partners will therefore develop their capacity to engage with, motivate and lead others to participate in activities that promote sustainable development and also self-development.

Project Lead

Elizabeth Hauke (e.hauke@imperial.ac.uk) and Mark Pope (mark.pope@imperial.ac.uk), Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication

Further Details/Experience Required

 3 students with experience in Change Makers modules.  Part-time between October and March, with three weeks more intensive time-commitment during this outside of term-time. 

Changemakers online platform recruitment ad

Summary

We are looking for one enthusiastic UG student to join an international collaborative project between Imperial College and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The project aims to co-produce learning resources to be used asynchronously as part of pre-existing blended learning courses at both Universities. The student partner joining us will engage with the project during all aspects of resources production, spanning inception, design, calibration, storyboarding and evaluation. Students will also have the opportunity to engage with international collaboration with their NTU peers.

Interested students should have good organisational and interpersonal skills, be able to conceptualise and produce good quality learning materials, be a good team-player, be proactive, and be able to work independently and with international partners.

Project Lead

Iro Ntonia (i.ntonia@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Teaching Fellow in Educational Development

Further Details/Experience Required

3 hours a week, part-time for 14 weeks.  One role available.  

Co-production of Neuroscience of Learning resources recruitment ad

Summary

Imperial Library Workshops is a programme of elective support providing a range of academic, digital and information skills for undergraduate students designed and delivered by Imperial Library staff, encompassing such topics as Preparing your first literature review, Strategies for note-taking and  Strategies for effective revision and online assessment. The programme is part of the library’s holistic teaching programme and is reviewed annually by staff, with incorporated student feedback.

We will ask student partners to critically consider aspects of content, delivery, evaluation and marketing of the programme in alignment with the College Learning and Teaching Strategy. In addition to making recommendations and agreeing changes with staff partners, student partners will own, and have responsibility for, developing and implementing changes to the programme as part of a negotiated process.

Activities for student partners will include:

1. Develop a critical understanding of existing workshops programme: target audiences, teaching methods, marketing strategies, evaluation techniques
2. Review develop and redesign select teaching materials (lesson plans, constructive alignment, activities)
3. Plan, develop and execute a short UX study to gain student insights to inform development of the workshops programme
4. Plan, develop, implement a cohesive marketing strategy for the 23-24 academic year
5. Plan, develop and produce a short promotional video
6. Develop and implement evaluation techniques for quality assurance

Project Lead

Coco Nijhoff (a.nijhoff@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Teaching Fellow, Library Services

Further Details/Experience Required

Four positions available.  Undergraduates at any level from any taught programme.  Four weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Review, inform and improve Imperial library's workshops recruitment ad

Summary

Imperial has a highly technical and creative community of students and staff. Many are skilled at developing software. However, we don’t currently have a good way for students or staff to deploy their software to production infrastructure without specialist technical support from individuals within ICT and related groups – which can be hard to get. We want to make this an easy, self-service experience.

As a partnership between ICT and the Dept of Computing, we are creating a self-service platform to make it easy for staff or students from any department to build new digital applications that integrate with other College systems, and to deploy them on reliable infrastructure, quickly and easily. The idea of this platform is to give developers a kickstart to get prototypes up and running, and then for successful projects, to support the transition to a production system that can be used across the College or even beyond.

We envisage that students would be key users of the new platform, creating software relevant to their studies, or for their own projects. We are therefore seeking students to work together with us through the StudentShapers programme to develop the first applications targeting the platform, helping to design an effective developer experience.

This project has two objectives, firstly to help us to work on the best experience for developing with the Imperial cloud platform. And secondly, to build a useful application.

In terms of a target application, we are partnering with Prof Tim Ebbels and Dr Aaron Lett from Medicine, who are looking for a software system to help with advertising and fairly allocating student projects. Our plan is to recruit two students to work as a team to develop this as an app on the Imperial cloud platform. We have a partial prototype of such a system written in Python/Flask with a simple web UI. We hope that the team would be able to take this as a starting point, work together with us, Tim and Aaron to develop an application that meets the needs of Medicine, and to use the cloud platform to deploy prototype and production versions, using modern software engineering practices. You would simultaneously work together with ICT’s Technology Office to refine the cloud experience.

This project would suit students who are competent web developers, who are interested in exploring cloud technologies, and who would like to design and build software to be used by their fellow students.

Project Lead

Robert Chatley (r.chatley@imperial.ac.uk), Director of Software Engineering Practise

Richard Howells (r.howells@imperial.ac.uk), Head of Technology Office

Further Details/Experience Required

Students with experience building web applications, particularly with Python/Flask / JavaScript / Databases. 

Five weeks full-time during Summer break.  Two positions available.  

 Self-Service Cloud recruitment ad

Summary

We will develop and establish a college-wide Student Research Network within the food research discipline.

This network will untie all PhD and Masters students across the college active in any and all research which is related to food, whether that is nutrition and health, food engineering, agriculture, food consumer behaviour, food policy and economics and more….

This network is made by students for students, and ultimately it will be you who makes this a success!

This network will provide a vehicle for all students involved for cross-disciplinary learning and skill development through on-going programme of activities, events and opportunities throughout the academic year. The principal event will be an annual student conference. We will also host a bi-annual seminar series and social events. The network will also provide a platform to disseminate opportunities, topics of interest, career development and support, attract industry funding, networking and research skill development.

We have a 3 phase plan to deliver this project. This will require you as a ‘Student Research Network Manager’ to be involved in all project phases, working with other student research network managers and college staff to develop the overall student research network, as well as leading on activities in the respective faculty you represent. In all project phases you will be well supported and we have a academic lead in each faculty who will be your local point of contact, as well as staff who will be involved in the overall network.

Project lead

Aaron Lett (a.lett@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching Fellow, Dept of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction

Further Details/Experience Required

4 PhD students, one from each Faculty. Part-time for 34 weeks. 

Each student recruited will become the “Student Research Network Manager” for the respective Faculty they represent.

Students will be PhD students within the respective faculty, who must be involved in research related to “food” and have at least one year remaining on their enrolment status.

PhD Supervisor approval will be required upon student partners being selected. 

'College-Wide Food and Nutrition Student Research network' recruitment ad

Summary

The Careers Service is seeking to better understand our service users through analysing and interpreting appropriate data with a view to identifying student groups we might need to support more, or differently. We want to support as wide a range of Imperial students as possible and to ensure the best use of our resources to deliver maximum impact. We will encourage student partners to develop a data-driven understanding of current engagement from a variety of community groups within the college with a focus on widening participation students. Data will initially come from already held datasets, for example from our JobsLive database. They may need to be supplemented during the project with student-led surveys, focus groups or interviews. This supplemental data would require ethics approval, which the student partners will be involved in applying for. Findings from the project will be delivered as a presentation to members of the Careers Service at the end of the project, and will be used to inform priorities for project work immediately in summer 2023 and onwards into 2024 and beyond.

Project Lead

Jess Popplewell (j.popplwell@imperial.ac.uk), Careers Consultant, Careers Service

Further Details/Experience Required

Two positions available.  Any student from any department.  

8 weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Understanding Careers Service user groups recruitment ad

Summary

Please note:  ViRSE expressions of interest will all be considered together – please submit one single form to the project that interests you most, rather than multiple applications for each ViRSE project you are interested in.  Please state which other (ViRSE only) projects you are interested in, within your 300-500 word statement on the form. 

The ViRSE (Virtual Reality Student Experience) project is developing a virtual reality platform to ease the development and deployment of ‘multi-player’ virtual reality into Imperial’s teaching across a range of departments and subjects. ViRSE is built on the Unity game engine, and all ViRSE applications (including these projects) are also built within Unity; code is written in the C# programming language. Students will not need to build a VR interface, write rendering code, or concern themselves with networking or administrative issues; these are handled by the ViRSE framework and the Unity engine. The development in this engagement will concentrate on the creation of a three-dimensional ‘environment’ specific to the project, and creating and testing the code necessary to make it function, and to interface with the ViRSE system.

All ViRSE student shaper engagements will commence with a two-week full time training course , which will provide the necessary grounding in the C# language, object-oriented programming, the Unity engine, the ViRSE platform, and 3D modelling tools. This course will take place on-campus July 3rd-14th 2023. In subsequent six project weeks the ViRSE student partners will lead on the development of the particular applications within Unity, in collaboration with the academic lead, and with the ViRSE team providing technical support and advice. These six project-development weeks are flexible in precise timing, but should take place over summer 2023, before the start of Autumn term of the 23/24 academic year.

• Bonebuilder with Alan Spencer (ad here: ViRSE Bonebuilder Spencer recruitment ad) 1 position available.
• Palaeoworlds with Alan Spencer (ad here: ViRSE Palaeoworlds Spencer recruitment ad) 1 position available.
• ExploVR with Chris Tighe (ad here: ViRSE ExploVR Tighe recruitment ad) 1 position available.
• Geomorphology with Dylan Rood (ad here: ViRSE Geomorphology Rood recruitment ad) 1 position available.
• Seeing what lies beneath- seismic reflection imaging and VR with Rebecca Bell  (ad here: ViRSE Seismic reflection imaging Bell recruitment ad) 1 position available.
• Virtual Reality multi-use building laboratory to explore crowd dynamics with Arnab Majumdar (ad here: ViRSE VR Crowds Majumdar recruitment ad) 3 positions available.
• Human-Robot Interaction in Virtual Reality for teaching Applied Robotics with Petar Kormushev (ad here: ViRSE Human robot interaction Kormushev recruitment ad) 1 position available
• Crystal Structure Tetris with Matt Genge (ad here: ViRSE Crystaltetris Genge recruitment ad) 1 position available
• Educational Platform for Beam and Truss analysis with Demetrios Venetsanos (ad here:  ViRSE Beam and Truss Venetsanos recruitment ad) 3 positions available

Project lead

Mark Sutton (m.sutton@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer, Earth Science and Engineering

Alan Spencer (alan.spencer@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Strategic Teaching Fellow, Earth Science and Engineering

Chris Tighe (c.tighe@imperial.ac.uk), Senior Lecturer, Chemical Engineering

Dylan Rood (d.rood@imperial.c.uk), Senior Lecturer, Earth Science and Engineering

Rebecca Bell (rebecca.bell@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Lecturer, Earth Science and Engineering

Arnab Majumdar (a.majumdar@imperial.ac.uk), Professor of Transport Risk and Safety, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Petar Kormushev (p.kormushev@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Lecturer, Dyson School of Design Engineering

Matt Genge (m.genge@imperial.ac.uk) Senior Lecturer, Earth and Planetary Science, Earth Science and Engineering

Demetrios Venetsanos (d.venetsanos@imperial.ac.uk), Principle Teaching Fellow (Student Experience), Aeronautics

Further Details/Experience Required

Two weeks full-time during Summer break (July 3^rd-14^th), followed by six weeks full-time (specific dates to be determined upon partner selection). 

Background/skill specifications are specific to each project; please see the recruitment ads above

Summary

We are looking for an enthusiastic, organised and self-motivated partner to collaborate with us to refresh and redesign the social programme of our summer pre-sessional English (PSE) courses. This is our first year back on campus after 3 years online! Our aim is to develop an exciting, sustainable, robust and student-centred programme collaborating with student social reps on courses; In 2024, the PSE students will run this programme entirely, using the guidance you develop.

You will have a good understanding of what it means to be a student in the Imperial community; as a student, you will also be better able to build the trust of PSE students! They are therefore more likely to tell you honestly what they think about the social programme as it takes shape. The CfAE staff have the expertise in developing programmes, so we can partner with you in this venture - mentoring, guiding, questioning and helping as needed. The ultimate decisions will lie with the students, as the programme is crafted by them for them.

We envisage you will research students’ needs and wants, create the resources and build the infrastructure including the social calendar. To achieve this, you will run focus groups for feedback and collaborate closely with imperial staff and student reps such as the International Office, the Student Union and PSE staff as well as outside organisations. Together, we will develop a handbook and guidelines for good practice so that PSE social reps can lead the programme in future years. This range of tasks will give you numerous opportunities to develop valuable curriculum design skills that are transferable to the workplace.

Project Lead

June Hammond (june.hammond@imperial.ac.uk), Teaching of English for Academic Purposes, Academic Services

Julie Hartill (j.hartill@imperial.ac.uk), Deputy Director, CFAE 

Further Details/Experience Required

One position available.  Any UG or Masters student; you must still be a current student for the duration of the project.  

7 weeks full-time during Summer break. 

Summary

The Imperial College Learning Analytics Project is a College-wide project that embeds the use of Learning Analytics into the College. ‘Shaping Learning Analytics’ is an invaluable stream of work feeding into the wider project and is advantageous for both staff and student partners.

We envision a future where reliable, safe, accurate data about our learners and their online behaviours are available to academics, educators, professional staff and students; enabling them to improve teaching and learning experiences through evidence-based evaluation, data-driven design and insights into learner behaviours.

The College aims to use learning analytics to offer an enhanced student experience, rather than most learning analytics systems which focus on predicting at risk students, streamlining and cost-reduction of services. The project will enable academic staff to identify patterns and trends to support students, review and evaluate teaching, make evidence-based decisions about enhancement, and facilitate high-quality staff-student interactions. Students will also be able to access their own personal learning analytics to reflect, gain insights into their own educational experience, and be empowered to improve their own learning. With our student partners, we will gather insights and co-design data tools and workshops for wider groups of students (to be conducted in the Autumn Term of 2023) in the following areas/outputs:

• Evaluation of and design of metrics through beta-testing of dashboards and data tools (potentially showing their own personal learning activity data)
• Potential to experiment, build and interact with a dashboard to answer specific questions with own learning data (depending on the skills and interests of recruited student partners and the progress and structure of data models at the time)
• Policy and procedures relating to data, privacy, and ethics
• Best practice guidance for staff and students for interpreting and using learning analytics
• Innovation and ideation of further Learning Analytics project outputs

This approach to working – co-designing and collaborating with students values the mutual expertise of staff such as data analysts who understand the data from a technical point of view, academic staff who use our systems in and out of the classroom for teaching and interacting with students to improve teaching and students who will represent their own values toward learning, teaching, support, and data/privacy.

Project Lead

Camille Kandiko Hawson (c.howson@imperial.ac.uk), Associate Professor of Education, CHERS

Charlotte Whitaker (c.whitaker@imperial.ac.uk), Learning Analytics Project Manager, Education Office

Further Details/Experience Required

Undergraduate students from any department or faculty.  Three positions available.  

Four weeks full-time during Summer break.  

 Shaping Learning Analytics recruitment ad

Summary

Lambda Feedback is a web platform that hosts homework, with a focus on mathematical subjects. The platform hosts question content both in the browser and in traditional PDF format. Online step-by-step solutions are also provided and are particularly popular with students.  

In addition to content delivery, the platform provides automated feedback on student responses. The long-term vision is rich, timely, personalised, feedback to students at the time of doing their homework. 

The software is being developed within Imperial. This year is our first academic year in ‘alpha’ version which hosted 9 modules across 8 departments and 2 faculties, with over 1,000 student users. We are now working to widen the availability of the software and to improve the functionality. 

More information about the software can be found here: 

Article: https://teachingengineers.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/computers-make-us-human/ 
Presentation: click here 

We have 8 StudentShapers positions in summer 2023 each with the following purpose: 

• In partnership with an academic staff member, curate their content on Lambda Feedback. Key aspects include content transfer and editing; setting up automated feedback; improving the content.
• As part of the wider team of summer students, develop the software more broadly. Key aspects include documenting good practice, testing new features, designing new features, and designing a broader vision for the future software – for example curating positive learning communities on the platform, identifying key analytics to serve students and teachers, or developing study aids.

Essential skills and experience that we are looking for: 

• A passion for and knowledge of your own subject
• A deep appreciation for the student experience in your subject, and the key needs of students
• A keen interest in content management, including typesetting
  (markdown, LaTeX, images; learn as you go!) 
• A vision for digital education where software serves the needs of today’s students

Project Lead

Peter Johnson (peter.johnson@imperial.ac.uk), Principal Teaching Fellow, Mechanical Engineering

Further Details/Experience Required

Students from any cohort who study in the following departments: Aeronautics, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computing, Design Engineering, Materials Science, Mathematics, Mechanical Engineering, Physics.

Eight weeks full-time during Summer break.  

Lambda 22-23 recruitment ad