There are two formats available for training, and it is important that as a minimum colleagues complete one of these prior to using Unitu so that you and your students get the best from this system.

1)      Live group sessions – please contact your Unitu area lead to confirm when  live sessions will be available at the start of the new session and how to join one of these

2)      Asynchronous training package – This is a web based package covering the content which you can work through by yourself at any time, saving sections and returning as needed. To access the online training you need to:

1. Open https://unitu.co.uk/courses/
2. Click enrol under 'Staff Training'
3. Register an account - we suggest using your staff email. Make sure to indicate you are from the University of Manchester in the appropriate drop down. 
4. Complete enrolment and work through the video based training on the Unitu website
5. Following completion of the Unitu training you will receive an email to confirm your completion. 
6. Unitu will provide the project team with updates on who has completed this version of the training. 
7. If you have any questions or issues when attempting to do the online training please don't hesitate to contact daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk

PLEASE NOTE – If you have completed live group training, you can still register for the online equivalent to use the videos provided as a reference point. You do not have to ‘complete’ this training if you attended the live session.

We would recommend you signing up for this in order to use the videos for further support should you not find the answers you need in this document. You can also contact your Unitu area lead or the central team via daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk

You can also visit https://help.unitu.co.uk/en/

The platform is a web-based, dynamic, ‘always-on’ feedback tool structured around the Student Rep system and as such is supported by both UoM and UMSU. The platform has a student only area, called a board, where student feedback can be posted and self-assigned to one of four categories. These are praise – to provide positive feedback, question – for asking anything they may need to, idea – for suggesting new things to adopt/change, and problem – for making staff aware of issues that are arising.

Other students can then add comments and vote on feedback left by their peers to indicate their support which by doing so will bring specific attention to this matter. Student Reps are responsible for acknowledging feedback in the student only area and escalating feedback to a staff board for action. Student Reps can, and are encouraged, to respond and co-resolve student queries within the student only area first and to escalate to staff colleagues for action where they are unable, or where it is important to do so. Once escalated to the staff board a member of the team is assigned the feedback post and should then provide a response within the ‘expected wait time’. At this point staff also assign an NSS category to the feedback. (Note: Unitu will ask you to assign a PTES category for appropriate programmes, this is a reminder that UoM does not participate in PTES and we are working with Unitu to customise these options in the future). Staff members continue to post updates as the feedback progresses, posting a ‘final update’ and moving the post to the ‘closed’ section once a final outcome has been reached.

The Unitu platform auto generates a ‘Together We Changed’ page containing a summary of all positive changes actioned via the platform, providing personalised impact summaries for each student to demonstrate what they have supported/commented on. You can see a summary video of this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2Y5AKjr6Wo.

Student Reps are integral to the Unitu process. In the student only board reps act as the first level of support, acknowledging new feedback, asking follow-up questions and encouraging peer engagement to determine that the issue is representative of the cohort. They can respond to feedback where the answer is simple (what’s the link to access X?) or is a matter of signposting (you can contact DASS at Y), or where an issue more relevant to the Student Union may have been raised. For other posts Student Reps decide when feedback needs to be raised to the staff board where staff support is needed Please liaise with your Student Reps to make arrangements for how you will support each other in making this relationship work.  It is this relationship and the opportunity to co-create solutions with students and student reps that makes Unitu work at its best and will drive positive change at the university.

Staff members, both PS and academic, with access to the board can respond to feedback and help to provide solutions. Once a rep has raised a piece of feedback to the staff board, this should initiate your input and support. One member of staff will be assigned board admin for your area.  As board admin they will receive an initial notification via email that feedback has been raised. When they log in to look at the feedback they will be able to assign it to a specific staff member on the board. This could be a year lead, module lead or specific member of PS staff – whoever is most appropriate to respond. This member of staff is then responsible for providing updates to students via Unitu. If you are assigned a piece of feedback an ‘expected response time’ count will begin.

You are not necessarily required to provide a solution within this timeframe – simply an update on the current status of the feedback. It is suggested that your first update should be after you read the feedback, acknowledging it and thanking students before explaining what your next steps will be, it may be that you need students to comment further to provide more detail or clarify before you can act and close the feedback. Every update resets the response time. You can continue to provide updates as things progress/within the expected response time as needed. Once a final update is available you can mark the feedback as closed and the trail is then moved to the ‘closed’ section of the board as a historical archive.

Closing the feedback loop is the most important aspect of your role. Students want staff updates on feedback they are concerned about. By having Student Reps provide support for simple issues, the raising of more complicated feedback demonstrates to students there is a need for staff involvement. Please ensure that every post is acknowledged, even if the feedback has been decided to be something that cannot be considered at this time and/or will not lead to change. In those situations ensure you explain why this is the case so as to be transparent and honest with students. If change does take place remember to close the feedback, and provide the final update indicating what has taken place. ‘Together We Changed’ will not log actions unless you indicate the feedback as closed against the post.

The feedback board is divided into four sections; private, opened, in progress and closed – working from left to right. As staff member you cannot access the private area or student only board. This is where students can post, comment, respond and look to resolve feedback together with Student Reps. Students have the ability to toggle their own anonymity on and off each time they post something – depending on whether they feel comfortable attributing their name to this piece of feedback. Student Reps will moderate feedback here. Although you cannot see this area as a staff member – you can see an overview of the number of open and closed pieces of feedback. Once Student Reps deem feedback representative of the cohort they will raise it to the opened area or staff board – and this is where staff input begins.

Once a piece of feedback is live it is important to begin acknowledging and responding to this. Clicking into the post opens all comments and student discussion surrounding the feedback. Staff can post in two ways – as a comment or as an update. Posting a comment is the same as a student posting a comment, it is added to the chain of discussion and is visible to all. This can be useful if you would like to add comment to a post, or ask a simple clarifying question – without it being flagged to students as an official update. Posting an update (by clicking the toggle next to the text box to make it an update) will place the post at the top of the thread – indicating this is an update for students to be aware of. Updates also trigger notification emails to students to flag to them that an update is available.

Following an update you should move the post to ‘in progress’ if this update is not the final answer/solution. You may have decided that your board admin is always responsible for the initial update, assigning a staff member to the query and moving the query to ‘in progress’. You can move feedback to an action category by clicking on the actions button on the right hand side of the post page or by clicking and dragging the feedback post on the main board screen. By moving feedback to ‘in progress’ once you have begun to work towards an answer/solution you are visibly demonstrating to students that you are engaging with and taking the feedback forwards. Combining a written update and moving the feedback really shows students that their voice is being heard.  

If a piece of feedback is raised that is decided not to be appropriate to take forward at this time it is still important to provide a response. Posting an update explaining that you are grateful for the raised feedback but it cannot be taken forward due to X is a perfectly acceptable response and it is encouraged that you do so in this situation. Closing the feedback loop is a key guiding principle for Unitu and developing how we respond to students when the answer is no is a major benefit of this platform. Greater transparency can be achieved via updates that break down the reasoning behind a ‘no’.

Updates link to the expected response time system that the Unitu platform calculates. Once a post is raised to the public area/staff board a date by which a response should be provided will be assigned to the feedback. This will be 5 working days after the date it was raised. The assigned staff member should work to respond to the feedback within this number of days. We encourage you to respond earlier than the final date as this will demonstrate active engagement to students. When a response is posted as an ‘update’ rather than a comment this will reset the expected response time, adding another X days until the next update should be expected. If an ERT is missed the date on the post turns red and your board admin receives a notification.

Staff should not panic about posting updates to students – an update does not have to be a resolution. For example, it can simply bean update that you are waiting on a response from a staff member or appropriate team or that you will need to take the feedback to a committee on X date. One purpose of the updating process is expectation management for students – make it clear that their feedback will be considered, but wider-ranging/more complicated feedback has to go through appropriate channels and due governance. Continuing to provide updates, within the ERT is key to Unitu as this keeps students informed and provides some transparency that may not already be present in departments – creating a partnership and boosting engagement.

When a new piece of feedback has been raised the board admin will be alerted. They can then assign this to a specific member of staff. To do this open the post and click to open the list of actions – selecting the member of staff to which the feedback will be assigned. At this stage it is a good idea to also post a comment to acknowledge receipt of the feedback and explaining what the next steps will be. This can be done either by the board admin or the newly assigned member of staff. Once this has taken place the feedback can be moved from the open column to ‘in progress’. Simply click and drag across on the board, or within the post, again click on the actions drop down list to the right.

The board admin can assign posts to themselves to begin with, and then reassign if it becomes clear that another member of staff is better suited to take the feedback forwards. When reassigning you can send a message to the staff member, explaining the feedback, context and why you have decided to assign them.

As mentioned previously closing the feedback loop on Unitu is key to engagement with the board and developing a community feel where students feel engaged and empowered to co-create solutions. Acknowledging all feedback raised to the public level/staff board will demonstrate to students that you are listening and taking their comments on board.

In addition closing a completed post is the most visible way to close the feedback loop to students. Selecting the drop down actions menu within the post and changing the status to ‘closed’ will do this. You will receive a pop up that will prompt you for a resolution to explain what the outcome of the feedback is. If a successful resolution was not achieved you should explain why in this comment box. If a positive change has come from this feedback, indicate as such by clicking the tick box – this will then log the impact in the ‘Together We Changed’ section of your board. As mentioned previously you can also drag the box across into the closed section on the main board page.

The ‘Together We Changed’ reporting function provided through the Unitu platform collates all feedback posts which staff have indicated have led to a positive change. Students can see all the changes that have occurred, showing the processes that led to this and highlighting how students contributed. They also are presented with a personal breakdown of how many votes, comments and posts they have contributed which have led to positive change. When used in conjunction with active feedback loop closure via staff updates and comments this really demonstrates to students the benefit of Unitu and will encourage those who are less likely to post to get involved.

Unitu is not a ‘plug and play’ platform –there needs to be some initial prompting in order for students to engage. Once we have some feedback on the boards, students can see this and a snowball effect occurs – but we may have to do some initial work to encourage students to post at first. In addition to pushing engagement by always closing the feedback loop, staff can in a way ‘start’ the feedback loop.

Staff are also able to post out to students in the same way that students can post out – perhaps you have something specific that you would like student feedback on?. This encourages students to engage with the platform, and once the cycle takes place with some staff-initiated posts, students can see how Unitu can work, encouraging them to post their own feedback.

Staff can request feedback by asking a question, suggesting a new idea for consideration or posting an update and asking for comments.

To do this select ‘New Feedback’ and a pop up mirroring what students see is available for staff to post a request for feedback. Students will be notified that a new post has been produced by staff asking them for feedback. If your department has multiple programme titles – you can link your post to a specific programme, if it only relates to them – meaning other students will not be notified.

This is a fantastic way to start engagement, as well as to ask your whole cohort and engage students who are less likely to respond to conventional methods and requests. We encourage you to use this to post out about any known problems at the beginning of the year or around stress points you identify as common every cycle in your department. In the scenarios section of this document we have also provided some prompt questions/topics if you are struggling to start the conversation.

In addition to the more active side of engagement you can edit your profile on Unitu to help with visibility and transparency. This section explains how to add a profile picture and how to update your role.

If you have not added a profile picture click on the setting button under your name in the top left, select pick a file under ‘change your picture’ and select the photo you wish to use. You can use a webcam as well as traditional file upload. This will help students to recognise who is providing updates and adds a human element to the platform. Additionally, ensuring that your ‘university role’ is visible to students (this could be as simple as ‘lecturer’, or what modules you lead on or roles you hold such as ‘student engagement lead’ or ‘SSLC Chair’) can be really helpful. You can access this in your setting as well. From your role description students can understand why you are the specific person acknowledging their feedback and see that appropriate processes are taking place with the staff needed to make change.

Awareness of the platform is the first step in engagement and we have worked centrally to make this easier for departments at what is already an incredibly busy time during the welcome period. A kit of resources is available for department leads which are all in a template format, allowing for personalisation within each department. This will include a template launch PowerPoint, email templates and social media promotional images. Please contact your departmental Unitu lead for these. They will be coordinating efforts for promotion, and may ask you to support this. If anyone would like to request support for specific types of resource not available or any questions they can contact daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk

These communications are really important and supporting your departments approach is crucial to engagement. From their system Unitu have identified that communications from staff are the most common on loading pathways for students to the system.

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Unitu has the ability to engage specific types of users, such as non-active’ students who are yet to activate their accounts. Navigate to the ‘members’ tab where you can see breakdown of groups and options for how to try and boost this - ‘Invite students’ will only email out to students who are yet to activate their accounts for example.

Feel free to edit the generic template this generates. We would encourage you to edit the message by both explaining what Unitu is and why it is of benefit to them – but to also to demonstrate this by providing an example of something that has been actioned thanks to Unitu. You could also link them directly to a piece of feedback that has been closed, encouraging them to activate so they can take a look, and or to support current feedback being discussed. Please also ensure you sign emails personally as the template does not include this as standard.

Additionally we would encourage you to signpost students to Unitu. If you receive emails about feedback that you think would be representative of the cohort, or would benefit from being on Unitu – encourage your student to go to Unitu and post their feedback there if, for example they have emailed you directly. This will help to boost engagement whilst creating a central location for feedback and should have the overall benefit to reduce multiple and duplicate student emails to staff of this nature. We do of course appreciate that this may not be an appropriate channel in all circumstances and you need to respond by email.

Engaging students who are already using the board can be done by providing updates on feedback, staff requesting feedback and or posting known issues, posting out questions or looking to obtain feedback to suggested ideas.

Responding in a timely manner will also support engagement as will ensuring that the department is actively working In partnership with Student Reps. Setting expectations with the reps to let them know who they can contact to discuss difficult queries, and to arrange a regular catch-up may be useful, as well as ensuring that Unitu feedback is a standing order on all SSLC/equivalent meetings in the department.

It may be useful to know that all threads produce a unique link which you can link out to in emails and other communications – encouraging students to access Unitu to look at specific feedback threads.

In addition to looking at the history of individual posts (on the right side of the post screen) there are analytics available to you on your board. Navigate to analytics – user engagement on the left of the screen to see some engagement analytics. You can also identify a specific time period you would like to see – for example to see the impact of an email sent out in the last week to prompt account activation. There will also be regular updates from the centre provided to departments which you can contact your department Unitu lead about.

Moderation is key to maintaining a constructive and healthy environment.  All students can report content but only moderators (staff and Student Reps) are able to finalise the removal of a post. They make the decision whether a post reported by any student is removed. Unitu are also able to moderate reports but will only do so if there has been no action by university moderators.  Unitu will notify the central team before taking any action.  Reports are made in line with the content policy, which is presented to students when they activate their account and all reports must indicate which aspect of the policy they are reporting against. (Please note that launch communication resources will summarise this policy for students in addition to it being presented as something they must agree to upon activation).

If a reported comment is moderated to be inappropriate a strike can be assigned against the user, as part of three strike policy.

Strike 1 – A warning is issued to the student informing them of their actions and to explain how they are a breach of the content policy with a link to review this. Unitu has noted that most students quickly adapt their behaviour following this action.

Strike 2 – At this stage toggle student’s right to self-toggle the anonymity of their posts is disabled. (We are able to track anonymous posts against a user account). Unitu again notes that this typically has a strong impact on the user and how they engage with the platform

Strike 3 – If the user, who is no longer anonymous continues to post inappropriately, a final strike will see their account suspended. This student will then be put in contact with staff members at the university via Unitu. The content policy does state that whilst all feedback posted anonymously is as such Unitu reserves the right to waive this if there is a clear violation of Unitu/UoM codes of conduct.

To report click the report button next to the specific post you are reporting and then fill in the pop up that appears. It will ask for clarification and to flag which aspect of the content policy you think this breaches. Individual comments in a chain can be reported- it doesn’t have to be a full feedback post, a single comment can be flagged.

The moderation team will be notified via email when a piece of content has been reported. Follow the link in the email or click on the moderation section of the board to access reported content. All content reported will be listed here, with a report status. As a moderator of this, click on the content and you can see the content reported, why, and how many individuals have reported it. You can also click ‘view context’ to see the reported content amongst the other comments and the post itself to which they were responding. The following options are available when moderating:

• Remove the content without a strike
• Remove the content with a strike
• Reinstate the content (i.e. Not remove it).

You may wish to review the content policy when moderating – click through to this with the link in the bottom right of the moderation area to help you make your decision if you are unsure.

For less extreme content it may be that you choose to remove without a strike and explain to the user why you have done this. Regardless of what decision you make, when you do so the platform will ask you to provide an explanation of why that decision has been reached. This will be sent to the user who posted the content that has been reported and those who reported the content will be informed of what action you have taken.

If your department has ‘fitness to practice’ considerations you may have additional steps when a piece of content is reported – please contact the Unitu lead for your area if you believe this to be the case.

Moderation has been built as part of Unitu to ensure that whilst the system is designed to be open and allow for the freedom to post feedback, there are some checks in place to stop anything inappropriate or offensive from being shared. Hopefully you can see that this is a robust process which is simple to manage from the staff perspective. Central staff who have worked to launch Unitu at Manchester are on hand for support if staff need guidance – please contact daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk.

 We appreciate that Unitu is not the solution for your student’s concerns, but a tool for you to engage with and resolve in a collaborative manner. It is therefore key that all staff on Unitu engage and support these processes. To ensure your confidence in doing so the final section of this document present a series of scenarios and some suggestions of how you could approach them.

Some quick tips when responding to feedback:

• Aim for a less corporate and more personal tone in your responses
• Be positive in your responses. Students will respond better if they feel that Unitu is a less intimidating environment.
• Provide an update if you are unable to get an answer before the ERT, and explain why
• Be honest with students about long-term projects/high level meeting dates - manage expectations
• Be truthful is something is unachievable or unlikely to change – providing an explanation can help remove frustration
• If multiple posts have been raised withsimilar feedback, respond to direct them to the original post

You don’t need to wait for a student to raise a piece of feedback to engage with them on Unitu. Navigate to the board and in the ‘open column’ click the green ‘new feedback button’. Complete the form that pops up, this is the same method students use to when they post feedback. You can use this to ask questions, suggest ideas or prompt for students to provide you with specific feedback that you are looking for. If you are on a board with multiple course titles, you can choose to relate it to a specific course – this will the only notify students on this programme title.

Posting out will be a key way to kick start engagement on Unitu when you first launch. Students are more likely to post comments than provide new posts to begin with. Once they see the process and staff acting on feedback this will give them the confidence that staff will listen to them on Unitu.

You may want to post out when Unitu first launches in order to begin these processes. Student Reps will also be encouraged to do the same thing in the student area, so you may wish to coordinate what you will be posting. Some suggestions of what you could ask about/post about are:

• How was your activation process? Are there any features of Unitu we don’t understand?
• How was your welcome period/induction? (This could be really good to use if you introduce Unitu in a lecture in teaching week 1 – as it will encourage account activation and interaction immediately)
• Questions about specific topics such as an event in the department (you can even do this as they are leaving the event), whether a piece of software is working, if people can access a file, to confirm all students have received a specific email/update personal to them
• You can inform students of improvements and ask for feedback. For example informing higher year students of changes made from previous years and if they have noticed/found them to be beneficial
• Informing students about an improvement being made such as new resources, a change in approach, additional support.
• Issues you are aware of in the department, and would appreciate students providing their thoughts on for you to collate into work on those issues at departmental level/higher.

Given that you can’t access this section yourself you need to contact your Student Reps. If they are not checking in with the platform this is an opportunity to remind them what they need to be doing to support Unitu and their fellow students. Additionally, UMSU will be supporting Student Reps at a higher level, ensuring that feedback is acknowledged and moderated.

However, a large number of posts doesn’t necessarily mean Student Reps aren’t engaging. If they have provided responses themselves, and haven’t found a need to raise to staff the post will sit there. Ask your Student Reps to go into the system and ‘close’ posts which have been completed. Asking them to ‘tidy up’ the student area will help that number to go down (closed posts are counted separately).

This isn’t a problem! First, provide an update on the post thanking them for their feedback, then explain that you need to speak to X as they are best placed to answer. If you can, try and note how long you expect this to take – to support expectation management. Once you have the feedback/comment/information add another update to the post. You can thank the students for their patience, explain what you have done/who you have spoken to and then add ‘see below’ before copying and pasting the information you have provided – attributing this information to who you got it from. If you think it would be more beneficial to paraphrase/reword this is okay but providing a direct quote can help to show students the process you have gone through to obtain the information for them.

During the year it may be that some feedback is raised to the public level as Student Reps don’t know how to answer it, and staff on the board realise they also don’t know how to answer it. The key thing to remember here is that you should not ignore this feedback or provide a very ‘stock answer’ as students can lose engagement if they see the same response across different posts. Acknowledge the feedback and explain that you are unsure of how best to proceed. Students are human, they will understand that no one knows the answer to everything. They’ve come to Unitu in the first place because they are confused/have a complicated question – they will understand that staff may need some time to identify an answer or solution. In doing so you are being transparent and supporting a community nature to your Unitu board.

If you need some quick reference of support services that may be useful to reference we suggest making yourself familiar with the A-Z list - https://www.studentsupport.manchester.ac.uk/uni-services-az/.

The A-Z covers everything from DASS to Sport but the following list may be useful in a high priority situation.

You can also go offline and speak within your department, school or even faculty about how to support students with their concern. This includes the School Support Offices - https://www.studentsupport.manchester.ac.uk/uni-services-az/school-support/

If the student has posted with their name attached to the content, make a note of this, remove the post by reporting it and contact the student away from Unitu/follow processes for this type of situation.

When someone reports a post they must attribute it to which aspect of the content policy they are reporting against. When reviewing the report – you can access the content policy by clicking the link at the bottom right of the page – review the section they have reported against and this should help you to make a decision. Do note there is a section surrounding crude content and that content should be constructive, adding to the conversation – this is likely to be the section you can report/remove against if you are unsure of the specific nature of the comment.

Remember that if you choose to remove the comment you will need to provide a reason why you have made this decision. Directly referencing the content policy is the easiest way to explain this.

It’s possible that ‘grey area posts’ will be present on Unitu where you are concerned but don’t think it necessarily goes against the content policy, or you have concerns around limiting students’ right to an opinion. There are a few of options available to you in this situation.

• If you need some further information to understand the point of the post, post a comment asking for students to further clarify/provide additional information. There may be a specific aspect you want to know about – indicate this to the students.
• Post out to ask for the creator of the post or comment to reword it for clarity and or ask them to remove a specific aspect that you deem inappropriate against the content policy. You could also mention if they do not edit by a certain point in time you will go move to our third suggestion.  You could also model to them how you might re-phrase it to show students how to make their post constructive without removing their right to voice an opinion.
• Report and remove the comment or post, explaining why you have done so via the prompt box to the student who posted it. Then as a staff member, use your ability to post out to students. Present the question/thought in a more constructive way. Explain via the post that you wish to encourage all students to participate but the original post was neither constructive nor congruent to actioning change. You have therefore produce a new place for them to provide comments, reminding them to keep them within the spirit of the platform.

There are a series of settings you may wish to explore on Unitu – click on setting under your account to open this area. Earlier in this document there was an explanation of how to add or change your profile picture. There was also a description of how to add your University Role to your profile as this helps with visibility and transparency between the department, staff and students.

The settings area will also allow you to edit which notifications you are receiving including push notifications to your phone if you use the Unitu app and the more traditional email notifications. Please consider whether you are using these notifications as a prompt to check Unitu before turning any of them off. If you access Unitu at a regular, set time every day/two days without needing email prompts, you may wish to adapt the types of emails you receive from Unitu.

There are a couple options if you still need support as we want to ensure we can help you get the most from Unitu:

1) You can contact the central team who have introduced Unitu:

                Daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk
                jo.hicks@manchester.ac.uk

2) Take a look at the Unitu FAQ pages (available for both staff and students) - https://help.unitu.co.uk/en/

3) Use the unitu contact button (blue) within the Unitu platform.

Note: if you have a question related more to Unitu at UoM/specifics of Unitu in your area – please contact the central project team. Unitu are unlikely to know the context of your department specifics.