Priorities:Koç University Student Priorities

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES by 2020 Cohort

#1 – Enabling our students to better plan and manage their time

• PROJECT IDEA - KULENDAR:
  • A calendar portal where all events in our school along with class times, deadlines and exams can be seen.
  • Problem:
    • Student Side:
      • There are too many events in our school which makes it very hard to keep track.
      • Only common ground for promoting events are through email, which leads to many people getting emails that do not relate to them, thus missing the events that they would like to attend
      • Students cannot plan the events they would like to attend ahead of time.
      • Students have a hard time keeping track of their deadlines for different courses.
    • School Administration and Student Clubs Side:
      • Many departments do not have the prior data about student’s vacant times to better plan their events.
      • Club activities department lose a lot of time sending club activities mails that can be easily automated
    • Progress:
      • Connections with IT Department established
      • Kick off meeting where use cases and MVP will be planned is set.
      • Team recruiting efforts have begun.

#2 – Facilitating the feedback mechanisms and making our voice heard in school management 

• PROJECT IDEA - KUForum:
  • A forum where students can ask their questions in categories and get answers that can be upvoted and post their complaints to the complaints board which will also move up as more people support the issue.
  • Problem:
    • Student Side:
      • Lack of questionnaires directed to students or examination of the problem before critical decisions by the school management
      • Lack of efficient representation of student voice in decision making process
      • Inefficient complaint resolving systems
      • Inability to reach answers of previously asked common problems
    • School Administration Side:
      • Inability to identify who and how many people suffer from issues.
      • Inability to get agile feedback
      • Difficulty of identifying most critical problems
      • Recurring mails from students which are usually sent to unrelated people
    • Progress:
      • Connections with IT Department and Student Dean established
      • Mechanisms of student complaints or questions being resolved is currently being defined.
      • IT Support for hosting and customization of digital solutions has been promised

#3 – Helping students to reach an international network

• PROJECT IDEA – International Workshops
  • Online International workshops in different areas such as sustainability, design thinking etc. coordinated with other UIF Fellows with the help of research centers in our school
  • Problem:
    • The question that comes with online education of whether the university education is necessary while you can learn things from online education platforms at the fraction of the cost.
  • In response to this problem, we want to help our schools’ students to retain the network opportunity that universities provide by using the advantages of the online era and our connections with UIF.

#4 – Realizing our students’ problems and improving their well-being

• PROJECT IDEA – Wellbeing week
  • Wellbeing exercises and workshops through the finals and midterm weeks that our school is mostly very stressful.
• PROJECT IDEA – Wellbeing Club
  • A wellbeing club that shares information with each other on wellbeing, does Yoga or meditation together 😊

#5 – Informing students about the Innovation & Entrepreneurship opportunities in our school

• PROJECT IDEA – I&E Online Manual
  • A manual that improves upon the landscape canvas we prepared containing information on entrepreneurship and innovation related coursework, departments, incubation centers and the paths and counselling they can take.
  • Progress:
    • Established connections with the director of KWORKS, our school’s incubation center and College of Administrative Sciences Dean.
    • Currently recruiting the team to design the manual and gather information on the existing opportunities.

 

 

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES by 2019 Cohort

#1 - Accessing Student Clubs.

• PROJECT IDEA - Club Activity Page:
  • Provide a platform where each club can have a voice and talk about their goals,old projects and upcoming events.

#2 - Labs about innovation and impact are not known around the school. 

• PROJECT IDEA - Scavenger Lab Hunt
  • Arrange a orienteering/scavenger hunt. In the beginning of each new school year there during the orientation process.

#3 - Combining knowledge and skills in practice.

• PROJECT IDEA - A program combining different majors and leading by a mentor who can guide about designing an upcoming project. 

#4 - Place/workshop to meet students who have common interests and make them to design a project and to do a prototype.

PROJECT IDEA - Design courses or conduct workshops to make students experience the information which they got from the lecture.

 

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES by 2017 Cohort

#1 - Guiding, encouraging and inspiring students about non-corporate career paths.

• PROJECT - Innovation & Entrepreneurship Manual October 2020
  • A manual containing information on entrepreneurship and innovation related coursework and departments.
• PROJECT - Innovation & Entrepreneurship Board October 2019
  • A board to share information about entrepreneurship and innovation activities with an inspirational & motivational quote to catch people’s attention.
• PROJECT - A periodically updated “How to” and "Where to" website for Koc University - November 2017
  • An updated website that guides students through skill and goal related journeys.
  • Listing all the related courses, gatekeeper people and professors, affiliated organizations, student clubs and “inside information” about specific goals, skills, needs.
    • Example Case
      • Student: I am interested in entrepreneurship, but I do not know if I am a good fit. I do not know where to start. 'Where should I start entrepreneurship or design at Koc?
      • Platform: You can start with this article from Steve Blank. How to Start a Startup Series are a very good source for getting to know what entrepreneurship really means? In Koc, you can take MGMT 411 and 412. Our university is also affiliated with KWORKS, an incubation center. There are also MAVA courses that introduce design thinking project mindset that is very helpful and related to starting a new venture. You can check MAVA 205. If you are also interested in social issues, you should check MAVA 420 and MGMT 311. Imece and Impact Hub are Istanbul-based social entrepreneurship hubs, you should look at their websites too.
    • PROJECT - A Startup career event - December 2017
      • Collaborating with career center, entrepreneurship club, marketing club, business administration club to gather 10+ startup founders with students to introduce succesful entrepreneurial career paths, hold pitch & innovation challenges with them.
    • PROJECT - TEDx event focused on I&E
    • PROJECT - Pitch competition
    • PROJECT - Innovation challenge
    • ALTERNATIVE PROJECTS 
      • A chatbot mobile application that creates instant answers from the website database
      • Quarterly revised handbook that lists all the information website has
        • "A Creative’s Guide to Thrive at Koc University"

#2 - Initiating, sustaining, and developing a multi-disciplinary creative network. 

There is this an urgent need for creative people coming from different disciplines to get to know each other and somehow interact.

• PROJECT #1 - Slack - November 2017
  • Properly designed Slack group for entrepreneurial needs, inspiring articles, event announcements, feedback requests
• PROJECT #2 - Creative Newsletter
  • Can be integrated to the website
• PROJECT #3 - Redesigning KU Daily 
  • For a more individualized, interest-based communication platform

#3 - Redesigning the ineffective indoor and outdoor spaces in the campus to facilitate productive co-working, creative socializing, and wellbeing.

• For a spatially limited campus (meaning there are no free spaces around the campus to enlarge the area) efficiency of currently used areas are highly important for a comfortable, creative student life.
• PROJECT #1 - Redesigning Yeni Nero space
  • Heart of the campus has the worst indoor design.
  • Furnitures are terribly old and dull, not allowing comfortable eating, working in groups and even having a enjoyable coffee break.
  • Sound isolation is terrible.
  • There are no sockets.
  • Even it is a large are at the heart of the school, it is not facilitated for workshops, artistic events.
  • Interior decoration is not inspiring.
• PROJECT #2 - Building small transparent containers in the dormitory area - Fall 2017
• PROJECT #3 - Designing empty spaces that will be created due to the moving of science labs to the new building. - Spring 2017

#4 - Informing, promoting, and integrating “social impact” in the campus. 

• PROJECT - Social Impact Quotient – 2017
  • Not only GPA for students
  • SIQ that measures each student’s impact on his community, campus and environment.

#5 - Facilitating online & offline intersections for the curriculum with new e-learning technologies, platforms, organizations.

• PROJECT - Hybrid academic and skill-related e-learning certificate programs.
  • Connecting courses, e-learning platforms, organizations, clubs, companies and more with condensed certificate programs.

#6 - Designing and building a creative space that will allow multi-disciplinary collaboration, 7/24 co-working, organizing workshops, hosting maker projects, incubating student startups, intersecting with related courses for alternative educative methodologies.

• PROJECT - Community Space - Fall 2017 & Spring 2018

#7 - Empowering administrative and academic staff with I&E related content, workshops, programs for creating a more coherent campus vision.

• PROJECT IDEA - Global Learning and Leadership Program for school employees