Investigating the feasibility of co-production of digital media with students

The Learning Development (LD) team has a suite of online videos which aim to provide students with support and guidance in a range of academic skills. The usage statistics show that they are more widely used than other content, for example PDF guides or Xerte activities. Many of these videos are created by academic and professional staff and are ‘talking heads’ which may encourage the students to become passive learners.

Two LD tutors and a Media and Journalism lecturer collaborated on a project to co-produce academic skills videos with students. Students were given a brief to create videos based on their own experience of study skills. They also took part in focus groups and a survey to find out more about their perception of educational videos and the experience of creating their own. As well as creating original content for use by students, the project explored the benefits and challenges of such an approach. The aim is to create a model of co-production which could be used by other subject areas and student cohorts.