Student of the Year 

• Edinburgh 8 (8 students) 
• Ayr 8 (6 students) 
• Aberdeen 4 (4 students) 
• Oatridge 0 
• Barony 6 (5 staff members) 
• Elmwood 1 (1 student) 
• Distance Learning 1 (1 student)

Online Teaching Excellence 

Total number of nominations: 37 (33 staff members) 

Club/Society of the Year 

Total number of nominations: 3 

Club/Society	Chair/President/Captain	Nominations
Green Feet Environmental Society (WINNER)	Angus MacLean	1
Ayr Agricultural Society	Charlotte Mortimer	1
Society of Animal Science	N/A	1

Ways to improve for future 

SRUCSA are always looking to improve our ways of working and projects. Below are some suggestions we received from staff and students, and our own reflections on how to run the SRUCSA awards even better for 2022. 

Feedback from staff and students 

Below are some suggestions we received from staff and students during and after the awards: 

• It was suggested that some staff members were uncomfortable being nominated for an award when it felt that their work as a close team was not being recognised – i.e. the great work they do is also down to the great colleagues they work with, not solely themselves. It was suggested to have the option to include “team awards”. 
• Proportionate representation – it was suggested whether this could be considered. For example, larger campuses/cohorts may received more nominations.  For example “ Some classes only have 4 students, whereby if 1 person nominates that would account for 25% of the class. Whereas a larger cohort of say 100, where a nominee receives 20 suggestions put forward only accounts for 20% of the class.” 
• Send Programme Lead a copy of their staff members awards so they can recognise the good work their team has achieved. 
• Produce a copy of past data and provide nominees/winners with the number of nominations, who the other nominees were. 
• Achieve some way of nominees thanking the person who nominated them. 

SRUCSA Reflections 

When organising the next SRUCSA Awards (2022), we will consider the above points from staff and students. We also have our own reflections on what we can do to improve for the future. 

Overall planning 

• The SRUCSA Awards requires more than 1 individual to execute the project and its associated tasks. 
• Using a project plan was very helpful. Would recommend reusing with appropriate edits (new dates, any other tasks we might need). 
• Need to find out how the SRUCSA awards fits in with Campus prize-givings/graduation (2020/2021 were not normal years as all off-campus). 

Survey platform/judging  

• Adapt the Nominee survey monkey to campus drop downs rather than type-in (easier to manage results – just make sure to add all options like botanics etc). 
• SurveyMonkey “ranking” was a good way of getting panel members to vote. 
• Maybe in future we only ask students on panel. We asked 2 staff members who were as “campus neutral” as possible – which can be difficult to find! 

Awarding nominees

• Divide populating the certificates between multiple team members
• This year we shared the comments from students for this first time. This was worth the time it took to input (again, this is a 2 person-job, divide it up by award category).
• Ask nominees to complete a Microsoft form with their addresses – it was difficult to keep track of via email, also meant trolling through to delete all addresses (GDPR).
• If nominees have a particularly lovely response to their nomination, ask if we can keep this to share for social media promotion for future.
• Posting – good idea to make optional (saves paper). This year, only those that opted for printed version received a printed one.
• Postage – all certificates printed and posted to 1 location, popped into A4 hard-back envelopes, large first-class stamp, taken to post office – this worked well.
• This year we included small “congratulations” cards in the envelopes – this was a nice idea.

After the awards

• Find a way for staff/students to thank the person that nominated them.
• Find a way for staff to share their award (social media template).
• Think of a way to promote – lanyards for winners? Coaster? Microsoft Teams background/e-mail signature?
• Think of a way to make more secure – host on Moodle, so only students can nominate? May impact participation – social media links would go straight to the Moodle page as opposed to the survey. Multi-factor authentication may be an additional cumbersome step if this is adopted.

Thank you

Thank you to all those who have taken part in the 2021 SRUCSA awards- students who completed the survey, nominees, judges, winners, the SRUCSA team and all those that gave us some great feedback!