Collaboration at Student Volunteer Ireland: Engagement and Recognition for Student Volunteers

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

This workshop offers an insight into a unique national collaborative project across Irish Higher Education to enable student voice and engagement in university volunteering. Student Volunteer Ireland aims to mobilise all students to have opportunities to impact their community through our technology at StudentVolunteer.ie - the extra-curricular VLE is cost-effective as the tools are available to all students to allow for reporting and monitoring both qualitative and quantitative impact of a valuable learning space in higher education.

Student mentoring programmes for incoming first years, student societies and sports clubs, educational outreach programmes, all utilise technical tools that staff administrators need to be highly trained and skilled in maximising student engagement. Our strong Strategic Plan supported with Project Management has enabled us to advance and grow our VLE with technical updates. Listening to the administrators' needs for a VLE as well as the opportunities through national policy and funding has resulted in a robust technical tool. The long-term sustainability of a platform is a challenge explored in this presentation.