Jisc Change Agents' Network Conference 2024

The Portsmouth Award is a collaborative project between the Careers and Employability Service and the University of Portsmouth Students’ Union. We wanted to design an award to recognise the valuable contribution students make to our City and to the student community through paid work and extra-curricular activities. Alongside this recognition, we also wanted to develop a framework to support our students with their career planning throughout the student lifecycle. 

These core aims were born out of the research conducted by the steering group. Extensive consultation was conducted with universities who had set-up similar schemes in order to base our design on good practice across the sector, with a particular focus on activity design, assessment and evaluation. Additionally, we sought advice from a range of graduate recruiters, so that the content of the award is founded on labour market skill requirements and current recruitment practice, ensuring the award has internal and external credibility and relevance.

Drawing on the CareerEDGE model of graduate employability (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007), and embedding the Value Me framework (Harrison, 2022), The Portsmouth Award follows a scaffolded learning journey across three levels, emphasising the development of identity capital and helping students develop a strong personal narrative (Tomlinson, 2017): 

• Own Your Story 

• Find Your Fit 

• Make Your Mark 

Ultimately, the programme encourages students to engage in critical self-reflection and evaluation to personalise their learning, enhance their self-awareness, and develop the confidence to articulate their value to an employer. It also supports the development of labour market research skills as students explore placement and graduate opportunities, and develop a competitive recruitment portfolio to support their applications. 

Join us for this session to find out more about our co-created learning design and assessment, our close collaboration with employers, and our future plans to embed the Award at course level.