Enabling professional accreditation training at Keele Pharmacy School
Mentoring is a core component of their professional accreditation training in pharmacy. Students at Keele University used the Indigo software to easily facilitate their existing mentoring infrastructure.
Key problems: a lack of flexibility and efficiency.
Mentoring is a core component of Pharmacy Students’ professional accreditation training. As such it is a compulsory element of their University course. Keele Pharmacy School operated a paper-based mentoring system to administer this.
As a graded element of the course, mentoring needed to be efficiently managed and meticulously monitored. The inefficient nature of a paper-based system coupled with a large number of students made this difficult to ensure. Additionally, student mentors could easily find it difficult to make time for in person mentoring sessions.
Our solution: efficient matching and communication
We developed a matching algorithm that seamlessly integrated into the Pharmacy School’s existing mentoring framework. This ensured students from each year were matched with the correct corresponding mentor at the click of a button.
Providing an online communication platform also meant that students could now carry out their mentoring duties online, rather than devoting large chunks of time to in person mentoring sessions.
The benefits: increasing university productivity
Using the Indigo administrative portal and reviews function, members of staff were now able to view and monitor the ways in which students were completing their mentoring duties. This provided valuable insight that could be used to supplement grading criteria.
For students, the increased access to mentoring meant that they were better able to fit their professional accreditation around their academic studies. This helped increase productivity and efficiency in both areas.
The results: what university students had to say.
Dr Katy Maddock, Head of Keele Pharmacy School, conducted an external review of the software.
Over 50% of Pharmacy students reported that they preferred using the Indigo software to complete mentoring than their previous paper-based system. 76% of students agreed that the software was either ‘very easy’ or ‘easy’ to use when carrying out their mentoring interactions.
‘I feel like it’s more authentic than the paper-based system where we used to meet up simply to fill in a sheet’.
Anonymous student
‘Easy to use and very flexible to interact with my buddy, no mutually arranged time required to meet, can use system in your own time.’
Anonymous student
About Indigo
Indigo takes your community online, creating bespoke online environments that make it easier for your members to connect, collaborate and access support remotely.