Embedded Files
Employability in the Curriculum (EiC) is a key element of the University of Sheffield’s Education Strategy. By the end of Academic Year 2026/27, Schools are being asked to meet baseline targets in three core areas, including “Reflection using mySkills”.
The key success measure for Schools, are that:
90% of Year 1 taught students complete the mySkills assessment and record at least 3 development experiences in mySkills.
80% of Year 2 taught students record at least 3 development experiences in mySkills.
80% of PGT students complete the mySkills assessment and record at least 2 development experiences in mySkills over the course of the PGT academic year.
Here we provide guidance with examples from the Schools of English and Biosciences on how to meet these targets.
Emma Hughes is a Teaching Associate in the School of Biosciences
Amber Regis is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English
Alison Clay is a Careers and Employability Consultant at the Careers Service
Choose authentic (and valuable) reflections to go in mySkills
Link module content directly to the Sheffield Graduate Attributes to support students’ reflections:
Example: In English, the ‘Global Awareness’ SGA was highlighted in a L2 module when setting Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park (1814) in the wider context of the global trade in enslaved people and recent ‘culture war’ debates concerning the National Trust’s decolonising initiatives.
Embed mySkills reflections into assessment:
Example: In Biosciences, all students have to complete a Coursework Coversheet for every assignment submitted to Blackboard. The Coversheet prompts students to reflect on previous feedback and write three reflections on Sheffield Graduate Attributes they have developed during the assignment, with a reminder to submit to mySkills.
Make sure that entering mySkills reflections forms part of assessment
In Biosciences, students are required to screenshot 3 mySkills development experiences and include it in an Employability Portfolio worksheet in both First and Second Year. This is also being introduced to PGT. The Portfolio is assessed on a pass/fail basis.
In English, key Level 1 and 2 modules across all three programmes (Linguistics, Language and Literature) require one or more mySkills development experiences to be submitted as part of module assessment. In most cases, this takes the form of screenshot(s) in an appendix to a pre-existing assessment (e.g. essay, learning journal, poster).
mySkills development experiences don’t need to be graded (i.e. they can be scored as complete, or incomplete).
Decide what should be included as a minimum for a mySkills development experience entry to be signed off as complete/ pass. For example, each entry should contain a title, description of experience, reflection of experience, and at least two SGA tags. Consider a minimum word count (NB: the total word limit of 4000 characters for development experiences; 2000 characters for the experience description and 2000 characters for the personal reflection). You might also ask for students to use a specific structure for their writing, eg using STARR or Gibbs.
Give clear instructions
Investing time at the start of the programme with dedicated sessions on Sheffield Graduate Attributes and mySkills tailored to core module content, helps set students up for skills reflection and personal development throughout their University journey. This may be a significant time investment initially, e.g. in English the Employability Lead delivered several sessions to cover different programmes, but in future years a virtual refresher should suffice.
Bitesize videos are available to help you explain mySkills.
Clear PDFs or screenshots of each individual development experience logged on mySkills must be submitted as part of the assessment to ensure engagement. Explain how to create a screenshot / PDF of a development experience and provide an example of what you are looking for.
Why screenshots or PDFs?
Ensures students have submitted their experiences to mySkills.
Asking students to copy and paste the text into a separate table or learning journal or other reflective document simply results in students just completing the table/learning journal, without having submitted the reflection to mySkills.
PDFs or screenshots must have a timestamp for the current Academic Year:
Students that submit screenshots from previous years will not be awarded marks in assessment, and the entries would not count towards the School’s mySkills success measures
Students are very welcome to include entries from the summer before the Academic Year, but the timestamp should show the Academic Year the reflection is being submitted for.
mySkills entries must be from the student’s own mySkills portfolio (we can check how many entries each student has written)
PDF is a good alternative to screen shots, as these can run through TurnitIn to check for duplication. Students can simply ‘Print as PDF’ their skills profile (output from the skills assessment) and development experiences. One or more PDFs can be combined into one document, which can make it easier to share or submit. Several apps are available to merge PDFs, including Adobe Acrobat Pro, Apple Preview, and Foxit pdf editor. Further information on how to capture and share mySkills outputs can be found here.
Sell the benefits of engaging with mySkills
The EiC baseline sets a minimum number of mySkills entries per year but we would, encourage students to submit entries throughout their time at University for the following reasons:
Reflection makes us better learners, understanding what we do well and what we can improve upon next time
If we better understand ourselves, it can help us choose careers we’ll enjoy
Very practical benefit - mySkills portfolio is a ready made reference library to help write CVs, applications and prep for interview
Protected time during programme to stop and think, which we don’t often get
Simple suggested technique to use to reflect in a valuable way, all reflections are saved in one place that you can access even after graduation
Additional considerations
Students who are not required to submit the assessment (e.g. students repeating the year who are not required to complete the coursework) may contribute to the overall total number of students on the system, and so make the baseline harder to reach.
Encourage students to submit reflections, even if they have completed the coursework.
Students who complete the coursework outside of the ordinary assessment period will not count towards the success measure percentages until Autumn, and so may not be counted towards engagement targets for that Academic Year.
Supporting materials
Supporting materials
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