DISCOVERING MORE ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS USING PULSE
To view the details of a particular student
Locate the STUDENT PROFILE icon on the Staff Page which can be accessed from the University of Bolton
Home Page
A screen will appear where you can type the student number and then press the View Report
button to see the student profile.
To see all the students that are allocated to your as a Personal Tutor
Locate PULSE, go to the Staff Page from University of Bolton Home Page and click on the PULSE
icon:
The following screen will appear:
Use the drop down menu
to find your name
Then click the View
Report Button
The following screen will appear:
Status Codes
First year student that hasn’t enrolled
1 or 2
Returning student that hasn’t re-enrolled
PX or RX
Dormant assessment
DT
Dormant suspended
DS
Written off
WO
Withdrawn
W
This list includes all the students that are allocated to the Personal Tutor you selected on the
previous screen.
Colour Key Indicators
RED = RISK
ORANGE = WORRY
GREEN = NO WORRY
The students are listed in order of potential risk. Those that are highlighted in RED or ORANGE
are perceived to potentially need more support than those highlighted in green. The students
colour code is generated from a combination of variables that are being used to assess risk. It will
not be apparent what the problem is and therefore you will need to do some further exploration. To
do this, click on the students name to drill down further.
Once you click on the student’s name, the student’s personal profile will be displayed on screen:
This screen provides general contact details, application, interview, qualifications, enrolments,
module results, CAS and Visas and student attendance by week.
The PULSE Graph
To the right of the student’s photograph, a graph will be displayed that show s the student’s PULSE
score!
The pulse score is made up of a number of variables including:



UCAS Points (the PLUM bar
on the graph)
Attendance (the YELLOW bar
on the graph)
Assessment Results (the
LIGHT BLUE bar on the graph)
Two of the variables will be taken into account to make up the PULSE score. The UCAS points
and the attendance are worth 50% each where there are no assessment results recorded yet for a
student. Where an assessment mark has been recorded, the UCAS points are disregarded and
the Assessment and Attendance are then worth 50% each).
The individual values of either UCAS/Attendance or Assessment/Attendance are displayed on the
graph by their associated colour in the form of a stacked bar chart. Thus, a bar for week 15 at
100% would indicate that the student either has the maximum UCAS entry points (compared to
other students on his/her programme) and has attended all module classes for that week OR that
the student has scored maximum marks possible in his/first piece of assessed work and has
attended all module classes fro that week.
You may be interested in looking at a particular week on the graph but you would usually be trying
to spot a trend occurring.
The Attendance portion of the bar is made up of a contribution from all classes attended, eg 2
classes would represent a 50% share of the total contribution. For this to be displayed, registers
need to be marked during or as soon as possible after each class finishes. There may be a delay
between marking registers and the graph being updated as the programme that updates this detail
is run during the evening.
The Assessment portion of the bar represents an average score for the last recorded marks for
assessment/s.
The attendance data is collected from CELCAT. See the Attendance Monitoring Policy for further
information at:
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/StaffPortal/PersonalTutoring/StudentAttendMonitoring2010-11.PDF
To view students enrolled by course/study location and year of study
Locate the Management Information link on the Staff Page which can be accessed from the University of
Bolton Home Page and then click on the link entitled “Clusters”.
The following screen will appear:
Choose the course, study location and year from the drop down menus and then click view report
The following screen will appear to show you details relating to your choices.
You can then drill down further by clicking on the + sign to the left of a location.
Finding a specific record
Type some text in the Find box that matches your search criteria and then press Enter to find some
text on the page to speed up locating what you are searching for.
Exporting the Data
You can also export the data on the screen to a spreadsheet or other format by clicking the disc
icon on the toolbar at the top of the screen display
Further resources to support you in your role
Whilst this data is useful, it may not provide an holistic approach of the areas of concern as its
main purpose is to prompt a conversation that will possibly lead to further action.
Personal Tutors Handbook
You are supported in your role by a number of other student support functions in the University and
a handbook is available at:
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/StaffPortal/PersonalTutoring/PersonalTutoringHandbook.pdf
This provides useful information on further support and signposting available to you and your
students.
Personal Tutoring Booklet for Students
The Personal Tutoring booklet which is given to new students can be located at:
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/StaffPortal/PersonalTutoring/PersonalTutoringGuidelines.pdf
Resource Pack for Personal Tutors
A useful pack of resources are also available at:
http://www.bolton.ac.uk/StaffPortal/PersonalTutoring/PersonalTutoringResourcePack.pdf
For further information contact Sue Burkinshaw, Associate Director, Learning and Teaching.
Email: S.F.Burkinshaw@bolton.ac.uk. Tel Ext: 3655
Moodle Environment for Personal Tutors
A Moodle environment has been developed by Mike Lawrence, AES, to provide an online resource
and communication portal for the Personal Tutor. Mike is willing to share this resource with any
Personal Tutor. To take a look, go to:
http://elearning.bolton.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=7744&edit=1&sesskey=MMbWWkqihX
For further information contact Mike Lawrence, Academic Manager (AES),
Email: M.Lawrence@bolton.ac.uk Tel ext: 3862
Online record keeping system to record your communications with your tutees
A simple record keeping and follow up prompt system has been developed by Tracy Ellis. This is
not a university system and not linked to SITS or PULSE. It is intended to be used as individuals
see fit to keep track of your communications with students and is a more sophisticated approach
than word documents or spreadsheets. To try the database, copy and paste the database into
your own M: drive that is at:
L:\Public\Shared\PersonalTutoring\PersonalTutoringRecords.accdb
For further information contact Tracy Ellis, Staff Development Officer, Email: t.ellis@bolton.ac.uk
Tel ext: 3586
Using the Personal Tutor Database to record communications with Students
The database can either be used by Academic Teams or by individual Personal Tutors.
You can delete all the existing (example) records and start to create your own.
You will need to enter each student tutee into the database before you start by clicking the Add
Student button and typing in the Student ID, Forename and Surname at the top of the screen.
Once you have added a student, you can type the following details in the communications section
below the students name:
Date:
Date of contact
Contact Type
Choose the method of communication from the drop down menu
Problem presented
Choose the type of problem (or other) from the drop down list
PT Initials
This field is primarily for use with teams but it will allow you to print a list of
your communications and follow ups if you enter your initials in the field.
Summary of contact: Type a brief summary of the discussion or communication, the intended
action by yourself and the tutee.
Related documents: You can use this field to add any documents that you would like to attach to
this particular communication for future reference.
Follow up date:
This field is particularly useful as you can add a follow up date that will allow
you to see who you need to contact each time you have some ‘Personal
Tutoring time’ set aside.
To preview all the communications you have made or the follow ups you need to
make for a given period, click the button FOLLOW UP REMINDERS A dialogue
box will be displayed asking you to specify the start of the period. You can use
this for viewing historical records or future follow up reminders by typing a start
and end date. Type the date in this format: 11/12/2012
Next you will be asked to enter your initials. If you have records matching your search criteria, they
will be displayed on the screen. This report can also be printed if necessary.