UTS awards CIC’s multi-year, multidisciplinary faculty collaboration, using the OnTask tool to scale personalised feedback and build student belonging.
We’re thrilled to announce that the Connected Intelligence Centre (CIC), in partnership with UTS academics from multiple faculties, was awarded a “highly commended” recognition for our sustained efforts in the Student Experience category, for fostering students’ belonging in multiple disciplines through personalised feedback. This accolade was part of the Vice-Chancellor’s 2024 Learning and Teaching Awards and Citations, and was celebrated at the 2025 Learning and Teaching Awards Ceremony at UTS on 4 April 2025.
Our large, multidisciplinary team comprised Dr Lisa-Angelique Lim (CIC), Associate Professor Amanda White (Business), Dr Amara Atif (FEIT), Chris Croese (Law), Associate Professor James Wakefield (Business), Dr Keith Heggart (FASS), Associate Professor Nicole Sutton (Business), Ram Ramanathan (CIC PhD student), Dr Rina Dhillon (Business), Dr Simone Faulkner (Business), and Professor Simon Buckingham Shum (CIC, Director).
Addressing the challenges of student belonging with personalised feedback using OnTask
Belonging is a cornerstone of the student experience, critically impacting engagement, retention, and overall success. At UTS, the Student Experience Framework places a strong emphasis on belonging. However, the challenge of nurturing a sense of belonging at the classroom level is significant, given the diverse and large student population, particularly in first-year core subjects. Personalised feedback has emerged as a potent tool to address this challenge, serving as a form of ‘relational pedagogy’ that builds self-efficacy and fosters greater engagement and thriving at university.
To tackle the challenge of belonging, our team leveraged OnTask — a tool designed to support students through personalised communication and feedback across multiple disciplines, based on their data. OnTask uses learning analytics to provide tailored messages that help students stay on track with their studies, understand their progress, and feel supported throughout their academic journey. Check out this short animation on how OnTask works.
Quick teaser video of our academics’ perspectives of their implementation of personalised feedback in their context:
Since 2017, CIC has been supporting academics to embed OnTask messaging in learning design, offering workshops and 1-1 consultations. By partnering with academics, CIC has helped implement OnTask across various subjects, thereby enabling personalised feedback and support for students. For instance, in the recent Autumn 2024 teaching session, 8 academics used OnTask in their subjects, with a total of 15,892 students receiving 16,026 personalised messages.
What this looks like in practice
Here, we highlight a few examples of the work by our team.
- The UTS Business First and Further Year Experience (FFYE) team, led by A/Prof James Wakefield and Dr Simone Faulkner, used OnTask to personalize orientation communications for both undergraduate and postgraduate commencing students, leading to a significant increase in orientation registrations.
- A/Prof Amanda White used OnTask in the Accounting for Business Decision A (ABDA) subject to tailor emails based on students’ progress, encouraging higher engagement and leading to improved exam grades.
- Dr Keith Heggart created personalised video messages tailored to students’ confidence levels in the fully online Graduate Certificate in Learning Design, significantly enhancing student engagement and perceptions of support.
- The positive impacts of OnTask are well-documented. For instance, in the large first-year subject, 22208 Accounting, Business and Society (ABS), led by Dr Rina Dhillon and A/Prof Nicole Sutton, personalised messages based on weekly quiz results led to improved pass rates and enhanced feelings of being valued among at-risk students.
- Similarly, personalised feedback messages sent by Chris Croese to his students in large Law subjects kept students on track and motivated, correlating with better final grades. More stories of how academics at UTS have used OnTask, with research papers, can be found on CIC’s OnTask page.
Towards future partnerships to enhance student belonging
With this award, we celebrate the collaborative efforts and innovative approaches taken by our team to foster a sense of belonging among students through personalised feedback. Our journey over these past three years demonstrates the sustainability of this practice and its potential to influence and enhance teaching and learning widely.
We are honoured to receive this recognition, and look forward to continuing strong partnerships, to make a positive impact on the student experience at UTS.