A paper from the 2013 STEM Annual Conference.
During recent years UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have faced increasing pressure to enhance the employability skills of students and graduates through such initiatives as sandwich year placements. The relationship between these industrial placements and the employability of students has been widely explored. The positive association between the two seems to be accepted by practitioners and educationalists alike. In order to support students with obtaining placements HEIs need to provide students with work-preparation skills and learning resources. Provision for these should ideally include digital formats.
This paper presents the results of an analysis of the content of 116 UK HEI websites. The study was intended to identify the placement information and learning resources available on the websites and focused towards the Computing discipline. Whilst 110 out of 116 (95%) HEIs provided general information about placements on their website only 73 out of 116 (63%) provided a specific page for Computing. An analysis of the availability of placement learning resources also showed that this was very mixed across the sector. The paper is intended to share the best practice for the provision of online placement resources in use across UK HEIs. This approach can then be duplicated at a local HEI level to support students in the acquisition of placements and the gaining of work-experience.
