3.2. Pathway barriers and solutions: Experiential

What might be the barriers to engagement for our personas and how can we address these?

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Experiential

We want the experience of working with this community to be positive. Below are a number of barriers to participating in the “experience” of the community which we have considered, and potential solutions to address them.

Time

Some members will have limited time available to engage or participate. We should devise systems to make participation easy for these people.

Communications

We should create tools for summary communications (for example a “slack round up”).

We should stage larger scale communications efforts at appropriate times in the academic year to catch new intake. This may be particularly relevant for Masters students, where we could consider incorporating some training into their project introductions.

Quick access to resources

Access to the materials and Open Tools should be rapid. Students and others should be able to reach the information and tools as soon as they need them, without a time gap.

Peripheral and low effort participation

There should be routes for engagement which do not require significant time commitments. For example, we could have a channel specifically for surveying opinions via quick limited choice polls. This would enable us to gain the input of a wider community without their needing to engage too deeply. Such a resource should be used sparingly, and advertised specifically for the purpose of low effort participation.

Dip-in, dip-out participation

People will have more or less time to engage at various stages of their appointment at WIN. We should make it clear that it is totally acceptable to dip into and out of active roles in the community whenever is necessary. This behaviour should be modelled and expected.

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