April 26, 2024, by Laura Nicholson

Digital tools supporting the administration of degree apprenticeship programmes at University of Nottingham

Throughout the 2023–4 academic year, we are running a new feature on the Learning Technology (LT) blog: a faculty takeover month! Each month, we will feature posts from different faculty members at the university. Every Friday, posts will highlight interesting work and ideas related to technology in teaching and learning and showcase unique projects from within the various disciplines across the UoN. So far, we’ve featured content from all the faculties at the University. This month, we welcome posts from degree apprenticeship programmes at UoN.

For this week’s post, we would like to thank Otis Rogers, Degree Apprenticeship Officer, and Scott Hill, Senior Degree Apprenticeship Officer. Additionally, Tendai Dube, Learning Technology Consultant for Apprenticeships. 

For degree apprenticeship programmes to run efficiently, a lot of administrative processes take place behind the scenes. Progress in the apprentices’ learning journeys is not just a concern for them alone, but also for the University responsible for developing their knowledge, skills, and behaviours (KSBs), plus their employers who contribute to their tuition fees. As such, there is a need to track the learners’ progress, and there should be regular reviews among all parties to ensure all standards are met. This is more so as apprenticeship programmes undergo Ofsted monitoring. Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services, and Skills in the UK. Degree apprenticeship managers and officers, as well as other key stakeholders, help keep records up-to-date and ensure that apprentices get the support they need. Various technologies are used to help with the administration processes, as outlined below.

Microsoft Teams

Teams is used to conduct online employer inductions following new cohort onboarding. This allows for a higher attendance rate than in-person inductions, which some employers can struggle to attend as they may be based nationwide and may find travelling to campus challenging.

Microsoft Forms

Forms are used for apprentices to report absences from taught sessions and changes in line manager or clinical supervisor details, allowing staff to update the systems in a timely manner.

Moodle

Moodle hosts the Apprentice Community Hub, which is a central resource for key support areas for the apprentices working alongside the apprentice handbook. It is also used to post apprentice-wide announcements that are delivered straight to their inbox.

Aptem

Aptem is an end-to-end system used to support the delivery of degree apprenticeships, all the way from applications through onboarding to end-point assessment. The system is also used to monitor the apprentices’ monthly learning logs and submit the mandatory individualised learner record (ILR) data to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) each month to access the funding. ESFA is an executive agency of the Department for Education (DfE). Aptem is also used to conduct and store quarterly tripartite reviews. These are meetings set up for the apprentice, the apprentice’s tutor, and the employer to review the apprentice’s progress.

Excel

Excel is used in a unique way to provide data breakdowns for the apprenticeship programme as well as to monitor compliance. Using an API key, Excel is connected to Aptem via OData to provide up-to-date information on each apprentice’s individual progress, easily highlighting any non-compliance with the funding rules. The same API key and OData are also used to populate a statistics dashboard that provides a detailed breakdown of all apprentices.

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