 Hello everyone, thank you very much for joining us, it's great to see you all here online of course. My name is John Whitaker, I manage the academic summer school programme at SOAS and I've also got my colleague Ruha here, Ruha are you there? Hello everyone, I'm Ruha and I work on the academic summer school alongside John. Great, so hopefully you can hear us both loud and clear. And so today we're just going to take you through our online summer school and the way our courses will be structured, the way they're taught and kind of the experience you're going to get, it's as close as we can get it to our on-campus programme that I know many of you, if not all of you have had your hopes on joining us in London this summer. Obviously that's not possible this year, but we're going to be bringing you something almost as good online and something that we think you'll find really valuable and a great way to spend two weeks of your time with us this summer as well. So we did a webinar session, a similar session like this I think back in March before we went online and when we were still planning to run the on-campus programme and in that webinar we gave you a background to SOAS, a big introduction to the summer school as a whole and SOAS as an institution so I'm not going to run through those details again hopefully all of you either are familiar with SOAS already and have an interest in what SOAS does, but if you're not so familiar we can link you to the previous webinar which has details about the approaches that SOAS takes to teaching the specialisms we focus on and the way we kind of view the world as well. So I won't focus on that too much, for this session I want to get right into the specifics of our online courses which I think is why you're all here to find out a bit more exactly about how the teaching will work and what you're going to be doing throughout the two weeks of teaching online with us. So let me just make sure I'm not missing, so we'll talk for I think I don't know about 20 minutes if that to give you an overview and then we'll open it up for your questions if you've got any questions along the way put them in the chat and we'll address those as we go as well and then we'll kind of formally open it up properly at the end for any questions and maybe if we miss any along the way we can go back and have a look through. So I think with that we'll kick off. So I'll take the first few slides and then Ruha will be taking you through the second half. So I think this should work. So we have a program of I think 18 courses that we're offering at the moment online. All of the courses will follow the same kind of format and the same structure. They may be very slight differences between some of them on the whole. All courses will be the same. It looks like someone's raising their hand. I'd say maybe if you write your questions in the chat if you can for now and then at the end when we have a Q&A session we can raise hands and we can speak in chat at the end perhaps that might be the best way to do it but do put any questions in the chat. So all of our courses are delivered via the virtual learning environment which I think every university probably has and every university is probably using a lot more in the last few months and probably in the next year or so as well to be honest. So it might be called Moodle. So it's called Bloomsbury Learning Environment. You will find all of your course material. That's where you'll access your lectures. That's where you'll discuss topics with your fellow students and with teachers. That's where you'll submit all of your assignments and things like that and basically all communication and the whole course is delivered via that platform so you'll have access to that before the course starts so you can familiarize yourself with it. And that's where all the courses will take place. And as you say, there's a range of different activities that you'll be doing throughout the course from discussions to lectures to tutorials to accessing the readings for the course. So that's all included within this platform. So you won't be kind of going off on two other websites and things. It's all self-contained within this one environment basically. Courses are two weeks duration of teaching and approximately we would say that you will spend around four to six hours each day covering the material. Now, it is quite intense in that respect. I know a lot of online courses can be very flexible. You can dip in and out whenever you have time. These are very different. So these summer school courses are intended for students to get a real intensive deep dive into a subject but also to earn credit over the summer that can be used and put towards your degrees back home as well. So there is a kind of rigorous element to these courses. I would say there's a certain amount of study hours that need to be fulfilled because they are credit-bearing. So courses have been designed with that in mind. So yes, they are very intensive and there's a lot to pack into two weeks of study, which is why our days are quite full on but I think give you enough time as well to fit it into your day. And hopefully at the moment with there's going on, you probably have a bit more time on your hands than you usually would. So we're kind of counting on you kind of using this course as something to really fill your days with as well and really get something out of it. So yes, it's going to mean that you dedicate two weeks really to jumping right into this course as you would have done if you were to visit us in London and study on campus. Your time is, you're immersed in the course and you're spending much of your day learning something and contributing to the course as well. We advise this around four to six hours. Some students will still dip in and out so we'll go into the structure of each day a bit more in the following slide I think. But it depends on how you are as a student. Some of you might want to just post every now and again and discuss things on and off with students. Some will be very engaged and you might spend all night talking to someone about a topic if you wanted to. So it does depend on how you are as an individual as well. You can manage the time yourself but I think when we see the kind of schedule of a day I think minimum of around three to four hours you'll want to dedicate each day to the course to really get something from it. And so I mean on that and the kind of time commitment that these courses will take we'd really like to hear your thoughts on that as well and to see do you think that is manageable for you to do? Do you have any thoughts around that? So do again post that in the chat or when we come to questions later do let us know. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts around that kind of time commitment over two weeks. So there is two weeks of teaching and then you'll have a range of kind of assessed elements within those two weeks. But at the end of the course those of you who want to earn credit will complete a final essay or final assignment that will be a kind of policy brief that you might produce and you'll be given a week at the end of the course then to complete that assignment. So you get a week after the two weeks to complete your final assignment. So in a nutshell that is the kind of overview of how courses will be taught. So I'm going to move along. So this is how a day would look basically. So the main lectures will be recorded. So they're not live. The lectures will be recorded beforehand and you can access those at your convenience. So we've scheduled them in here because this is what we'd recommend you to do but essentially you could watch them when you like. They'll be recorded. So you'll have a video introduction and a summary at the beginning and the end of each day. It might be an hour. It might be an hour. I think we'll keep it through around half an hour because I think things need to be kind of short and sweet when we're doing things online. You don't spend over an hour watching someone talk as you'll probably be aware as I continue talking as we go along. So introduction to each topic first then you'll be given a set of readings. Readings don't have to just be text. It might be a podcast. It might be a video. So that can be anything related to the topic. You'll have an amount of time there to get familiar with that article or to listen to the podcast to do what is being asked of you in that slot before we then have a break for lunch and then get into the live element of the course which would be our tutorials. We wanted to still include kind of a face-to-face part of this course as we didn't want it to just be like a lot of these online courses where you just enroll, you get a bunch of material and you work your way through it at your own pace and that's it. You don't really meet anyone else particularly. So this is a way for us to really give you that chance to engage with our academic community and with the course teachers but also with your peers and the students on the course as well. So we really want to create a really the same kind of community feel that we get on campus with our programs to these online courses so that you really feel part of something you're kind of studying together and you're moving through the courses together. But it's also a chance for you to really just direct your questions at the academics that we have and speak to them one-on-one. And yeah, so we still feel that that element is quite valuable to these courses. We've scheduled it to start at around one o'clock because that seems to be the best compromise in terms of time zones across the world. So that's why it sits there. Again, the tutorial sessions will be recorded as well. If it's just impossible for you to log in at that time, you can still go back and hear what was said and then still get everything that was kind of talked about there. So you're not missing anything even if you can't even if time zones become an issue it'll be recorded for you. So as we move down then following that tutorial session there'll be a chance for everyone to discuss things within the forum. There's a chat forum where all students can post. The teachers will respond to your posts. They'll direct you on certain topics. You'll be giving each other feedback. You'll be hearing each other's thoughts. You'll be responding to each other. So it's a real that's the discussion forums within the virtual learning environment are the place where this community gets built. Everyone shares their views if you're not so comfortable talking live in the tutorial. You might have internet issues or something like that that might stop you from doing that. You can still take part in the whole course discussion on the forum within that forum. So that's a really important part of the course. Following that kind of allotted time for discussion although the forum discussions will be open throughout the whole course. In and out of that you can do that at your own convenience. But just to give a bit of a structure you'll then have a follow up kind of reading or it could be anything. It might even be a guest lecture. It might be something else to do with the discussions that you've had that day. And then following that there'll be a summary for the day again a recorded video by the course convener or the course teachers and then following that as I said the discussion forum just remains open 24 hours and you can dip in and out have a look at what people are saying and respond to people as you wish then. Some days will be slightly different when there's assessed elements included will kind of come on to the assessments I think in a little bit but that's the general look of a day and and I'm seeing some questions here will group work be expected outside of tutorials? Possibly on some courses it probably differs between courses you might be expected to split into groups where you can't think yeah that's quite possible and can be done easily within the virtual learning environment that we have so you can split up into groups and discuss things you can have group video sessions as well so yes India quite possibly Hello are you going to tell us about the readings that we have to do before the course start so each course will most courses give you a selection of readings to start before not all of them but most will have a few readings or just suggest a bit of reading that you can do before the courses start I think particularly for online courses or for our online courses because they're so intensive it's quite a good thing to be able to get stuck in before the courses start so yes and there will be readings I can't say exactly what they will be they're obviously going to differ but I would say at some point in June we'll start to send out preparatory materials to all students to start to familiarise yourself with course materials and there will be a few readings there to get started with definitely okay moving on let's see so the assessment side of things so for those of you who are studying for credit not all of you have to study for credit we encourage you to kind of do that and to conclude all of the assessed parts of the course because they form a large part of the course but you don't have to kind of submit the final essay I think we'll talk more about that in a little bit but if you are studying for credit there will be two assessed elements as part of the course as part of the two weeks so in the first week there will be one which is worth 10% and that's usually an article review so you might be given an article that you need to critique and then post a response in the discussion forum and then there'll be certain activities associated with that for you to complete basically then as you move through the course in the second week there'll be another assessed element which will normally be putting together and constructing an essay plan which you'll then get feedback on both the teacher and from students as well about thoughts on where you could take what you might change that will be 20% and again those two can differ with courses they might be slightly different approaches taken but that will be generally what courses will do and how you'll be assessed and then as you get to the end of the course and as we've kind of discussed you'll be required to submit a final essay or policy brief of around 2000 to 2500 words and that will that will be 70% then of your total mark so we call them ETIVITIES these are the assessed elements of the course they could be anything, they could be an article review it could be a blog post an essay plan as we talked about it could be a number of different things just got a question from Hannah the degree was not in social sciences I think the summer school will be too advanced no not at all no you don't need to have a background in these subjects which if you've got a course in mind let us know we can certainly advise you on it and we can also put you in touch with course conveners who can talk through it with you and make sure that it is kind of the right course for you but there's certainly not kind of too advanced if you haven't studied that subject before some of the material isn't kind of it's not kind of total beginner level stuff but no Hannah I think even though you haven't got a background or your degree wasn't in social sciences that's no reason to not take one of these courses you'll still get you'll still be able to keep up and get everything out of it that you want to so I would say let us know which course you want to do and we can put you in touch with the convener if you've still got questions and I'm sure they'll they will be able to reassure you that the course is definitely right for you so let us know moving on students who complete the assessments oh yeah so obviously anyone completing these assessments and you have to complete all three of these assessed parts anyone completing those successfully will then be awarded 15 so as credits per course and you'll get a transcript confirming those credits um that can be used then if you're planning to take or transfer credit back to your home institutions um and if they need anything else if they need to review the course at all to to assess it or trying to think of the words not agree but just make sure that they approve it basically and then let us know if there's anything that they need we can usually either talk with them directly or provide any information that they need uh I think that pretty much covers assessments let's have a look what's next so let's just see if there's enough the climate crisis and politics yeah so yeah both of those courses will be taught by the same convener which is quite convenient Hannah Faizi she's amazing you'll love her and yeah neither of those courses require you to have uh kind of previous experience you'll be absolutely fine on those two and conveniently something we'll move on to um you can now take those courses back to back whereas they were scheduled to run at the same time uh so you so you would have had to choose one I guess that's something to say as well is that because our courses are full-time courses you do have to select one per session so if you're thinking of taking two you'd have to take one course and then second for a following two weeks so you study for a total of four weeks if you're taking two uh Hannah if you want to get in touch with us we can put you in touch with Faizi the convener and she can talk to you a bit more but um we've got any other questions let us know hand over to Ruhar I've taken up for more than enough time here um and she'll talk you through the next few slides uh so Ruhar I'll hand over to you thank you um so I'm going to talk to you a little bit about time zones I know we've covered a bit of this already um but obviously we're conscious of the fact that we have students joining us from all around the world and we've really designed our summer school around making sure that we can accommodate as many of you as possible so when we looked at the schedule we would have seen that the lectures were scheduled for an introductory morning session and for the summer at the end although we recommended that they will be um recorded and you can access them at any time so there is some flexibility there um you will have also noticed that the discussion forums are open for posts at all times so again although there is an allocated slot you are able to engage in them whenever really suits you so there's some flexibility and management of your time that you can do yourself um and then John mentioned earlier as well but the live sessions that you have which are the tutorials um although we've scheduled them for between 1 to 3 p.m. they will be recorded for anybody unable to attend um of course we do want to include that kind of more interactive engaging element as well so we've picked this time because it accommodates the most um kind of it accommodates time zones as we could work with so I think it works out about 8 a.m. in the U.S. and 9 p.m. in Japan um but again if you can't attend any of those they will be recorded and you can access any of this at any time um so yeah unless you've got anything else and I'm going to move on to the next slide yeah I guess um the tutorials I think most of the tutorials will last for an hour and then the 2 to 3 slot would be to the follow up forum discussions within that isn't it Ruha to kind of to do any follow up discussions that have come out of that tutorial that they'll then be taken to the forum so they won't be 2 hour tutorial sessions really um but yeah I mean maybe they will if you're having such a good time they might run over who knows sorry Ruha no no worries let's move on to the next slide so we also touched on credit a little bit so as you might already know our courses are um worth 15 so-ask credits each um in the European system this is equivalent to 7.5 credits and in the US this is 4 um these credits will be awarded to students who complete all of the assessments so that's the activities that kind of take place within the two weeks of teaching as well as that slightly larger assessment that takes place in the week after if you complete all of your course assessments you'll receive a transcript that confirms your mark, verbs your credits and that'll be sent to you um of course if you don't want to complete your course assessments and you're not too fast about credit that's absolutely fine um we would encourage you to still take part in the activities because they do play a strong role in the group discussions that will take place in the forums so we encourage that but at the same time you don't have to complete your final assessment that takes place after if you're not too fast about the credit um the transfer of the credit will be at the discretion of your home institution so please if that is something that's important to you just double check with your home institution beforehand before applying and if there's any way we can support you in doing that by getting in touch with them and sending some further information please let us know and we can do that for you and oh they've got to mention that if you don't complete your course assessments and you don't want the credit you still will receive a certificate that just confirms your attendance of the course move on to the next slide um so because we've switched to online teaching and the nature of online teaching means that we've had to make a few changes um there have been some changes to course dates so um we have some courses that share conveners so for climate crisis um as John mentioned earlier it shares the same convener as um the politics of protest development and social change so we have moved climate crisis very recently from session one to session two so it's now going to take place from the 20th of July to the 31st of July um which means that you can take part in both courses if you if you want to um and then secondly we've also had some changes to the project program policy evaluation course which has also moved from session one to session two um at this time these are the only changes that have taken place um but I would really recommend just double checking on our website before applying we've got a table on the website which specifies which courses take place in which sessions just to make sure you're not applying for courses in the same session um and that you're okay with the dates that are prescribed for each course um as well as that I probably recommend signing up to our mailing list which you can do through our website um I can send the link in the chat later um because if you sign up to the mailing list we can update you on any further changes that take place um I think that's everything kind of situation at the moment isn't it Ruha so the website's kind of constantly being updated with uh new information um or slight changes because yeah at the moment it's just the nature of the climate that we're in at the moment you're never really sure what's going to happen week to week so things can change um so definitely keep checking the website if you're thinking of applying or if you haven't applied yet or if you have applied um just check in every now and again but really look out for our emails as long as you're signed up to the list the mailing list will let you all know of any major changes that take place but hopefully there won't be many or many more um but yeah it's uh it's just at the moment there yeah there's things kind of are moving very quickly um we've had to move quickly and so yeah there's there's lots of updating going on uh on the website so keep an eye on it um yeah sorry Ruha that is cool and I think that's everything so does anyone have any more questions they want to ask um feel free to drop them in the chat if you have any questions have you got one the workshops will take place yeah it's something I just thought then we haven't included the guest lectures and workshops here so we've got that's one of the things that we're developing uh we've had to kind of redevelop since we've moved to online uh Teresa and we're just for final details before we send everyone um so I know quite a lot of people have signed up for them already um particularly when they were on campus um so they're still running uh we will announce details very soon on the final kind of guest lecture and workshop series so anyone who's not familiar with this it's basically an add-on that you can add to your program um that focuses on media skills uh kind of political training uh communication skills uh and that kind of thing that SOAS is kind of a big part of uh the things that we teach and uh and part of what we study here is is uh being able to communicate and put your point across and and maybe manage kind of power differentials within the room how you can use your voice effectively um it's kind of tied into all of our degree program so we wanted to give a taste of that uh as part of the summer school as well so it's a really exciting addition that you can add to your program um and it'll form it'll be in the form of a few uh guest lectures that you can access at any time so when you sign up you can just watch them at any time and they'll be about kind of speech writing uh how to use your voice effectively things along that kind of line there's details on the website um and then there'll be a number of workshops that you can actually sign up for uh you'll be signed up when you when you add these to your program but a number of workshops that you can kind of actively participate in there and it might be a kind of CV rewriting workshop it might be uh a scenario kind of uh session where you're uh you're working in a news room and you have to present an article uh at the last minutes uh you have to present a story or something that has changed in it's like a breaking new story um so there's some really exciting things they're still going to be doing uh we're still doing uh so I'm just going to scroll back on the chat so that's something that when you apply you can add to your program and we will also Teresa will uh send out final information very soon on exactly what those guest lectures and workshops will be and what it'll look like for online we've just had to make a few changes uh to that uh so let's see what else we've got hello I am not sure what that is in relation to we love it uh but that's good could you please share the link from the original webinar yes we will um I'll buy that now yeah great I'll sign through uh courses is there a cap on the number of students no no cap particularly with online it makes it uh kind of a bit more easy we're not worried about kind of room capacity and things like that online so there's no cap Melissa uh carry on possibly send us a link to yeah put the other dates not entirely fixed for the courses could you call the next sessions uh they are fixed India so the two session dates are fixed dates they won't be running outside of those dates we've had to move those two courses because they they shared the same convener that as I was saying but that's pretty much it now so so courses shouldn't be moving uh between sessions again uh the ones uh other than the two we've mentioned they should stay as they are uh okay let's see what else we've got I'm interested in the time for some schools non-credit but I don't have any in English only how certification again yeah Yukari um if you can drop us an email uh we can we can discuss that with you there's other option if you don't have certification of your English language level particularly at the moment because test centres are closed um yeah it's obviously very difficult so either just drop send us your application we've removed the requirements of English language documentation to be added to application so you can apply now without having to submit that um and then we'll discuss it with you um or you can just drop us an email Ruha maybe if you could put our summer school email in there for anyone who hasn't got it in the chat that would be great so Yukari that's fine just let us know and we'll we'll take it from there uh sorry uh iPad keyboard uh so application deadline is the 29th of May probably should have added that in here as well it's quite important so uh so 29th of May you've got to sign up uh please get your applications in look considering doing a masters in a different subject after I finish my degree next year would you recommend taking part in this course would be a good way to get yeah and that's exactly what these kind of summer school courses are designed to do um whether you're thinking of uh coming to SOAS for your masters or not um it's a great way to discover a new subject that you might be thinking of um particularly if you do want to try something at SOAS then it gives you a feel for the way we teach at SOAS and how we approach things um yeah on some courses even some of the material is kind of taken from masters programs um for courses um so it's definitely a bridge between uh undergraduate study and master study definitely okay Lucas are you at the price this year yeah we so we've reduced the fee uh that's something again that we haven't included here uh we've reduced the fee from our on-campus program so the on-campus fee was about 1750 and uh it's now 1200 so 1200 we've offered various discounts so there was early bird discounts uh with that there's a discount if you want to study two courses we're also offering a discount um on next year's on-campus program so if you study with us on this year you'll receive and you want to come back and study us on-campus next year we're offering 50% off your tuition fee next year if you study with us online this year um so I think that's a really quite a good incentive it actually means that with uh with the reduction in fees this year and the 50% discount you're almost getting two for one if you do want to come back next year um so I think it's quite a good offer to be honest so yes Lucas we have reduced it and this is what I'm taking class yet that's great uh cool any other questions at all I know someone raised their hand earlier I don't know if we've it might have been you Anna actually so I think we've yeah we've hopefully answered your question anything we might have forgotten Ruha so we've talked about discounts are there any discounts I missed we've got yeah the 10% off if you apply for more than one course um partner institutions so there's a list right yeah I can send that in the chat as well actually there's a number of institutions that we have partnership agreements with uh that we list and if you're from any of those institutions uh there's further discounts that you can access as well I think it's up to 20% uh so it's worth having a check as well before you apply but we would if we see that you're from those institutions we'd just apply the discount anyway so where are we 22 someone's just joined the session uh I'm hoping we've recorded this yes we're recording it so um anyone who's just joining this will be available online to catch up with any other questions or if we covered most things so we will think then that we discussed um do you all feel like that's manageable and then we'll get to some of these final questions as well any thoughts on how much time you'll be timing sound good great India great Hannah okay good I mean great thank you that's good to know um I mean we've all got to spend our days fill out something of them great thank you Teresa so what was the payment payment deadline so once you apply we give you 10 days which to make your payment if you for any reason you need a bit more time then let us know um we can usually be accommodating but the further and closer it gets to courses starting um the tighter that becomes so um certainly not the same day we'll give you 10 days to make you to arrange and make your payment and we'll give you instructions on how to do that Melissa credits can be carried over if we're studying to last September was it to add to this so credits earned on these courses can't be carried on to a master's program so they're not at the right level um so Hannah are you currently studying at SOAS at the moment they're undergraduate level credits so they're really intended for students who are studying elsewhere to study and then take them back to their home institution but also now I'm switching up at Kingston yeah so unless they say unless Kingston say for any reason you can use these credits to your undergraduate degree um then great but if not then yeah unfortunately they're not at the right level for master's programs um there's one course understanding research method where it's possible that you could get master level credits but uh we have to discuss that with you in more detail because it's level 5 level 5 second year undergrad great thanks Hannah okay let's just go back and yeah yeah you can contact the professors directly they'll be happy to uh get back to you um sometimes they're very busy so it might take uh a while I would say it may be something that we can answer in the first instance so I'd contact the summer school address and they summer school at soas.ac.uk and then if we need to we can put you in touch with the professor from there but to contact them directly that's not a problem uh this one funded so we we offered six scholars for tuition fee scholarships earlier in the year and so you've got to be kind of quick and early to to catch those they've all been awarded now um so there's not really any funding opportunities that we can offer uh we've tried to reduce the price as much as we can um and offered as many kind of discounts so that as we could as well um so uh before it's kind of all that we offer at the moment and uh yeah that's kind of it so the scholarships are really the main way of of getting funding for for these uh and so as um unless there's any kind of external funding but then there isn't usually that much external funding for summer school courses although possibly because they're credit bearing that you might find someone offering something but um we're not really aware of that many out there unfortunately I could probably mention for our understanding Africa course we do have a separate um bursary available so if you go on to the course page you can you can apply for that that is just for that one course very true thank you Ruha and it just cut out there so that's understanding Africa um are offering is it three bursaries Ruha I think yes three bursaries of about £500 each yeah so you could if you're interested in that specific specific course then there is funding available there actually um thanks Ruha any final questions okay this has been great thank you so much for for joining us um we really appreciate it and we're looking forward to receiving all of your applications so anyone who's applied already will know Ruha very well um she looks after you from start to finish and those of you who are yet to apply will be hearing from us so thank you all take and we look forward to coming to you this summer and giving you a real kind of SOAS experience even though it's offering you the kind of best that SOAS offers you're going to have access to our academic expertise that is so kind of specialist and not really available anywhere else and yeah it's something that is going to be very exciting and you're going to really enjoy okay guys thanks very much and we'll see you thanks all bye bye