Information and Advice Strategy at the University of Göttingen
Objectives of the Information and Advice Services
The information and advice services at the University tie in with the resources of potential and current students and thus promote their decision-making and general abilities as well as their motivation and personal organisation in relation to studying. The overall offer is oriented towards the phases of the Student-Life-Cycle. Services to prepare students for studying should enable them to consider their motivation and suitability for their chosen subject. A variety of services designed to assist with choice of course, study planning, and organisation increases satisfaction with studies and is intended to remove the need for switching degree programme and dropping out. So students are helped on their path to a successful academic qualification.
Coordinating the Various Information and Advice Services
A broad range of information and advice services are intertwined to create the overall support framework for students at the University of Göttingen. Given the different histories and situations in the relevant institutions, the types of service on offer vary widely. And precisely because of this variety, the differing needs of students are best met by closely coordinating the various services.
Promoting services to specific target groups using digital and analogue means and ease of accessibility both at university and faculty levels ensure potential and current students have minimal barriers to accessing tailor-made support services. The complete offering of all central and decentralised information and advice services at the University and key extramural institutions can be found on the website of the University of Göttingen.
The initial points of contact at the university for prospective and current students are the Office of Student Affairs and the Central Student Advisory Service, as well as Academic and Examination Advising in the Faculties.
Close cooperation and professional exchanges between all information and advice offices ensure the ongoing needs-driven development and quality assurance of existing services. Besides activities by university-wide and faculty bodies and work groups, this mainly takes place in the general networking meetings of representatives from the Offices of the Deans of Studies, study advisors and examination advisors, in the network of representatives of the Examination Offices, in the Academic Degree Network, and in the Göttingen Campus QPLUS project’s work groups.
All the information and advice services have a good cooperation with psychological counselling service of the Göttingen Studentenwerk.
There are also cooperative relationships with Social Counselling and the Studentenwerk’s BAföG (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz, German Federal Training Assistance Act) office and in particular also with the contacts of the general student committee. A regular exchange also takes place with external institutions such as the national employment agency, Agentur für Arbeit, and the adult education college, Volkshochschule Göttingen.
Types of Service
A broad spectrum of services both centrally and decentrally ensures responses appropriate to the demand and the target group. Services vary according to when they are available and content, and range from offering brief contact for information to more extensive coaching services.
At the Student Advisory Service in particular, which provides individual appointments, the interaction between the individual seeking advice and advisors goes beyond the pure provision of information. The Student Advisory Service is conceived as a psychological/pedagogic interaction (see in comparison 2. Frankfurter Erklärung zur Beratung 2012, www.forum-beratung-dgvt.de) and requires highly professional advisory skills. It involves a subjective consideration of the facts in order to enable the individual seeking advice to make a reasoned decision (see “Qualitätsmerkmale guter Beratung”, Nationales Forum Beratung in Bildung, Beruf und Beschäftigung, Berlin/Heidelberg 2011).
Approaches to providing information and advice about studying are combined to respond to the need for clarification of the various target groups (see Just-Nietfeld, J./Nickels, B., “Basics der Allgemeinen Studienberatung”, in: ZBS 1/2006, p. 2–9).
Potential students are given support with decisions about funding their degree and seeing it through to completion. Students receive support at all stages of their degree, with the specific objective of helping them to make successful progress, but also to support them through problematic or critical situations that affect their studies. The services are resource and solution-oriented, so employees help students to deal with problems and strengthen their potential to manage issues themselves. At the same time, the services are people-oriented and therefore openended. Participation is voluntary and can be anonymous. Information is treated as confidential. Where advice is obligatory, for instance under the study regulations before a final examination attempt, the aim is to clarify the study situation and enable the development of courses of action.
Quality Assurance
The feedback and findings gathered by the Information and Advice services are used for the ongoing development of degree programmes and organisation of studies and for the continuing improvement of services in the area of Student and Academic Services. This takes place through close professional networking by participants, for instance in regular meetings, anonymised case discussions, round tables with students and close contact with student bodies, as well as evaluation of the services.
Supervision and training are necessary tools to assure the quality of the Student Advisory Service. They are offered to all advisors as part of the professionalisation of the Offices of the Deans of Studies and/or by the Coordination Center for study guidance and counselling in Lower Saxony (KFSN). The University has also developed its own qualification curriculum for the employees of the Office of the Dean of Studies.