Getting Welcome Week ready at ISG

While it might seem far away, the lessons learned from this year's Welcome Week readiness project are already shaping ideas for next year.

Last week, a project designed to prepare the University Library and IT services for new students including all activities during Welcome Week was closed. The project involved the close collaboration of different University teams to provide support to new students during the Welcome Week period.

Each year over 10,000 new students start at the University of Edinburgh during the September Welcome Week. These students gain access to services provided by the Information Services Group, including new student cards, University Wi-Fi access, library tours, printing services and other learning and teaching technologies.

This year was the first year where Welcome Week activities were included in the overall readiness for Start of Term project and saw improvements to the organisation of the ISG Welcome Week, including a revised queuing system and the continued use of student helpers, who were on hand to assist in the smooth running of services, playing a key role.

Student helpers also used UniDesk Quick Calls to record the different types of service enquiries from new students. This provided useful information on which services students needed help with most, and will be used to guide changes to next year’s programme.

The queuing system will also be reviewed for next year. While this year’s queues were well organised, they extended outside the main library and at one point reached the University Business School. It is hoped that next year these queues can be designed to avoid leaving the library building to remain weatherproof.

Overall, this year's Start of Term Project, which included Welcome Week for the first time, was a huge success and even had a visit from the University Principal Professor Peter Mathieson whom helped hand out student cards. Next year we will start the project earlier, building on this year's success to further support students when they arrive in Edinburgh

Tim GraySenior Project Manager, IS Applications Directorate

Watch the video below to see a brief roundup of the Information Services Group’s activities at this year’s Welcome Week.

Getting Welcome Week ready at ISG

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