Warwick receives award for ‘Thinking about uni?’ website

The University of Warwick has been awarded the HELOA Innovation and Best Practice award for its ‘Thinking about university?’ website.

The award was presented to Warwick’s Outreach team at the HELOA National Conference.

The ‘Thinking about university?’ website is aimed at students between year 5 and year 13.

Each year group can access a slightly different interactive map, based upon a university campus, which is catered towards their interests and needs.

For example, the website explains what societies, seminars and lectures are, amongst other university facilities.

It aims to answer some of the questions students may have about university, in particular those that may affect their future life and career choices.

Tom Such, the project manager of the initiative, commented: “It was great to be able to accept the award on behalf of the Outreach team and the University of Warwick.

“This project is just one example of the excellent work that the team is involved in at the moment and it will be exciting to see how it evolves and develops over the coming years.”

Members of the Higher Education Liaison Officers Association, of which there are 900, voted for their favourite project developed over the past year.

The aim of the award is to encourage national recognition for innovative and exciting liaison work. The HELOA membership also gives feedback and ideas to participants.

Shareen Rikhraj, first-year Psychology student, told the Boar: “The use of illustrations and multimedia really help bring the experience alive to school children.”

The University of Warwick was shortlisted, along with the University of Nottingham and University College London, from 16 other participants.