All Cambridge Admissions Office courses

NOTE: if you'd like to join the session remotely, please let us know in the Special Requirements section when booking. This will help us plan the session and manage physical numbers in the room.

This hybrid session, delivered online and in person, will outline and explain a simple 6-step process for designing and embedding evaluation for Access & Participation interventions and programmes. The process has been developed by the Cambridge Admissions Office and is flexible enough to be applied to many A&P interventions, regardless of the student lifecycle stage in question.

This online session will explore ethical considerations and principles within evaluation and how to ensure ethical practice in your evaluation. The session will comprise of practical guidance and the opportunity to work through real ethics scenarios relating to evaluation within a group.

This online session will explore why and how interviews can be a valuable method in the evaluation of access and participation, outreach and public engagement activities/interventions.

NB: if you would like to join this session remotely, please let us know in the special requirements of your booking and we can send you a Microsoft Teams link.

Surveys are a very common data collection method in Access & Participation evaluation. This session will review why they are so ubiquitous, their strengths and some common pitfalls to look out for. Great if you're new to survey design or want to refresh yourself on this method, we'll be going over some examples from recent programmes' evaluation and sharing good practice in design, collection, and analysis.

Please note that both workshops will be suitable for both beginner and intermediate levels of expertise, with different activities designed to stretch participants of all levels.

If you are joining either of these sessions remotely, please indicate this in the 'Special Requirements' box and you will be send a Teams Link nearer the date *

Session 1 Introduction to devising an Evaluation Strategy

• Producing a Theory of Change
• Moving from a ‘Core’ Theory of Change to an ‘Enhanced’ Theory of Change
• Designing research questions for your evaluation using your Theory of Change

Session 2

• Designing research questions for your evaluation using your Theory of Change
• Selecting appropriate indicators and success metrics
• Selecting appropriate methods
• Understanding the strengths and limitations of various methodologies

The series aims to help outreach practitioners at the University develop Evaluation Plans for their current projects and embed evaluation into the development of any future outreach activity.

To get the full benefit from the series, participants are expected to attend all three workshops. We understand that for practitioners this may be difficult due to workload, so we have allowed the option to sign up and indicate if you are unlikely to make one or more of the sessions. If you are unable to attend a session the expectation would be that you read up on the content before the subsequent session and complete any tasks.

Cambridge Foundation Year – Admissions and Outreach Briefing 2021

The Cambridge Foundation Year is a new opportunity that offers a stepping stone to Cambridge for those who have experienced educational disadvantage. This innovative route is designed for a new field of candidates to help them realise their academic potential through a full-time, residential programme fully embedded in the Collegiate University. It is a fully-funded opportunity so comes at no cost to students.

This high-profile initiative for the University will launch on 13th January 2021 with the first students expected to begin their studies in Michaelmas Term 2022. This session will let you know how you can best respond to any enquiries you might get from prospective applicants or advisors in this coming year.

The session will be of interest to anyone working in widening participation or outreach, but particularly those most typically dealing with enquiries. For more information contact please contact: foundation.year@admin.cam.ac.uk.

This session will be held on Zoom and a Zoom link will be circulated to those registered on the event.

These sessions are aimed at those who are brand new to HEAT (Higher Education Access Tracker) and who will want to be added to the live database as their institution’s Operational Lead or User with all Reports. If you need Read Only or Read Only with Export permissions this training is not required.

The Cambridge Admissions Office HEAT Team will organise termly HEAT User Group Meetings. The aim of these meetings is to inform users of HEAT updates and raise any common issues to the group. There will also be time for any questions and/or feedback.

These meetings are primarily aimed at Operational Leads, however if these representatives are unable to attend the proposed dates, other HEAT users are more than welcome to come along. We hope to see as many of you attend these meetings as possible in order to make them as beneficial as we can.

HE Fairs presentation for outreach staff from across the university who can benefit from free professional development to improve their practice.