Marshall User group 2020

13th March 2020

We were delighted to meet with so many of our customers, many who have been with us longer than ten years.

Our user groups enable us to hear direct from our clients on where they want us to invest and areas they want us to improve in.

Sukhi Bains Head of Diversity at University of St Andrews opened the session with a talk and we have been asked to run more of these around the country.

New premium video option.

Marshalls have invested significantly in a range of new films to go within their e-learning, a preview of which can be seen here:
The most significant new video course is the new inclusive recruitment course which combines use of actors and interviews with members of staff at the commissioning institution. This has been modified and deployed at University of Sussex and The Open University. For a free demonstration please contact us.

Growth area – Student Services.

Our fastest growing area has been in resources for student facing staff with a lot of courses being commissioned by Heads of Student Services. Courses developed in this area include:

• Student mental health (developed with counselling team at University of Manchester).
• Disclosure of Sexual Violence (developed with Rape Crisis and University of Coventry).
• Bystander training (funded by The Office for Students and developed with University of Coventry and University of Warwick)

We were surprised to be approached by universities in North America on these topics and we have created a US version of the student mental health course using American actors.

Diversity upgrades.

Our brand new diversity training course interface is now ready, designed with up-to-date content for the year of 2020. It comes with the opportunity to add your own bespoke chapter for your own company or institution. Any client can upgrade free of charge, as at Marshalls we keep to our promise to provide updates and upgrades to clients when significant changes in legislation or policies appear.

Course content:

What is diversity?

Bias and behaviours

Equality and legislation

An inclusive environment

Diversity scenarios using high level actors

An assessment to see what you have learnt.

Digital Accessibility

None of the commercial e-learning tools create WCAG compliant e-learning. The group noted how e-learning platforms and authoring tools are struggling to reconcile the balance between interactive media rich modules and accessibility. Calling on the industry to ensure e-learning is accessible to all staff and students, it challenged providers to start producing WCAG-compliant modules the standard by the end of 2020.

“If WCAG compliance is essential for clients, it is essential for us.” – David Marshall.

LMS

James Sellers gave a demonstration of how Learn Upon can be used to record classroom training as well as e-learning. Alongside e-learning modules, clients can run ILT sessions within LearnUpon (Instructor Led Training). The system can be populate with the relevant locations and instructors, and then used to set up various events for recording. On the day of the event, the facilitator can print off rosters through LearnUpon, mark attendance either digitally or on the roster, and then upload the completed files when the session if finished.
A key discussion point in the session was automation of reporting, and reduction of administrative support. Marshalls have now done this for several institutions and it is free of charge to existing clients. This is achieved through use of the full API and Single Sign On.

James Sellers is available to discuss your individual needs with you, please do get in contact if this is of interest.
We also gave a short demonstration of how clients can easily add further content to the system, whether this be third party materials or content built in house. This type of license can be opened up for all clients if they want to expand their portfolio outside of Marshall courses.

Talk by Sukhi Bains – head of diversity at University of St Andrews.

Uses the following modules from Marshalls, Diversity in the Workplace, Collection of Equality Data, Unconscious bias, recruitment and selection and diversity for students.

All external speakers asked to do one of the modules. Recruitment and Selection is mandatory for staff on panels.

Important is customisation and updates, Sukhi explained to make use of Marshalls responsiveness to requests to update content and new ideas for content.

Sukhi would like Marshalls to look at the area of microaggressions next.

Expects modules in Scotland to increasingly require more customisation and Marshalls confirmed commitment to any changes needed for our clients in Scotland.

User group feedback

We asked some user group attendees about the event and Mariyana Bushara of Sussex University told us: “I found the Marshall user group a great opportunity to get to know more about what’s new and on offer. It is also a great networking opportunity as you get to meet a wide range of individuals from different universities, share best practice and get ideas on how to overcome challenges.”

Sadia Ahmed of Surrey University said: “I’m glad I attended, thank you for inviting us and arranging everything. The user group was very helpful in updating us on the new modules Marshall had on offer. Also, the session at the end where each user introduced themselves was really good, it was great to hear about the issues other users were facing and the suggestions offered by others to overcome them. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the different modules on offer at St Andrew’s by Sukhi, it gave me lots to think about and feedback to the team. Thank you again for hosting the event.”

And Felicity Candy of Regent’s University London thought: “The user group was a great way to meet other clients and find out more about how they were working with Marshalls. It was also a useful way to learn updates.”

Founder and CEO David Marshall commented: “It was great to be able to bring these institutions together to share their views and requirements regarding accessibility. Our development is led by our users’ needs so if WCAG compliance is essential for them, it is essential for us.”