Thread by @cupofassam

So, my employer @UniversityLeeds - without consultation with Senate, staff, union or learning and teaching committees - has decided it would be a good idea to add online discussion boards by default to all modules where students can post anonymously about the module.

Staff will be expected to reply to each and every message or query within 5 days. De facto additional workload, with no consultation

Now, this is a monumentally stupid idea, and it seems impossible that the decision could have been made by anyone who has ever taught, or that it should be made without consultation.

Students have plenty of forums and opportunities for feedback, queries, complaints, clarification. They can contact tutors, personal tutors, peer mentors, student reps, the student office, online resources, they can email directly.

There is plenty of room for anonymous approaches within those extant structures, but the need for anonymity is rare, and can be respected.

To create spaces where anonymous complaints could theoretically be positioned, facilitates bullying. By students of staff and by students of students.

We know from incontrovertible statistical evidence that student feedback is broadly more judgemental of women, of anyone with a foreign accent, of people of colour. My colleagues deserve better than our employer making that easier and quotidian.

Now, yes, we all want to and believe in supporting students through our modules. We have a range of innovative approaches to that, each context-specific, and often tailored to peer groups or individual needs.

To put in a system like this is a huge articulation of distrust and disresp for our professionalism and pedagogy. May colleagues and students come together to resist and block its being rolled out. Nobody should be disciplined or questioned for deleting the boards as they appear

Please retweet to educate and resist.

I might add this initiative comes in the back of a less than impressive set of metrics gleaned from a staff well-being survey.