Creators, evaluators, and communicators of knowledge:​

University College Cork fosters and empowers students to leverage research, data, and information to create and evaluate knowledge and contribute to advancing these concepts. Students are inspired to communicate their knowledge to benefit global and regional practice. Our graduates are equipped to seek new knowledge and continue learning throughout their lives. ​

Independent and Creative Thinkers:​

University College Cork encourages students to reflect critically on their intellectual performance and analyse and evaluate their practical output. Independent and creative thinking involves recognising creative opportunities and being able to combine ideas, objects, processes, methods, and systems to create innovative products and outcomes.  Our graduates show initiative and respond to unknowns in an enterprising and innovative manner to achieve a positive outcome to future challenges. ​

Digitally Fluent:​

University College Cork provides opportunities for students to enhance and apply their digital skills for learning, living, and working in a digital society. Our graduates will work in a world dependent on digital technology and communication; therefore, digital literacy will continue to develop and support our students to best equip them for employment in a digital society.​

Effective, Global Citizens who Recognise and Challenge Inequality:​

University College Cork provides opportunities for students to be ethical, and act with integrity in intellectual, professional, community, and global pursuits. Our graduates will nurture personal integrity, values, beliefs, and moral code. We enable students to critically consider the values and understandings that influence all decision-making processes and to be able to recognise and challenge inequality in all areas of life.​

Socially Responsible:​

University College Cork promotes a focus on creating awareness of how individual disciplines and fields of study all play a role in shaping future outcomes: social, health, environmental, and economic. Our socially responsible graduates can look at broader issues, community contexts, and potential impacts of their field of practice and understand how their actions can enhance the wellbeing of others to make a valuable and sustainable contribution to society.

If you would like to review the questions and discuss them with your team before completing the assessment, you can access them here. 

1. Complete this assessment (25 questions) 
• The questions are presented in five sections.
• Each section is comprised of five questions that assess the degree to which one of the five attributes is embedded in your programme. 
2. Shortly after you complete the assessment, you will receive an email with the results. If the score is 3 or above on any graduate attribute, you can select it when completing the g'raduate attributes' feature on CIM. 
3. Return to the CIM 'Graduate Attributes' feature and select the attributes where the score was 3 or above. 

Students are empowered by the university to leverage research, data, and information to create and evaluate knowledge and contribute to advancing these concepts. They are inspired to communicate their knowledge to benefit global and regional practice. They are equipped with the necessary skills to seek new knowledge and continue learning throughout their life.  

Why it is important: 

Student can:

• Take what they have learned and actively apply it.  
• Put ideas together in new ways or add their thoughts.  
• Share their opinions, insights, and unique personal lived experiences. 
• Make some new or add to existing knowledge.  

In the classroom 

• Students should be equipped with the knowledge to gather reputable information on a topic for an assignment.  
• Convey their knowledge through assignments, with the opportunity to be creative. 
• Students should be provided with the opportunity to reflect on their learning. Consider how reflection could be built into an assignment.  

Forms of Creations:

In addition to the traditional essay and presentation, encouraging students to utilise a range of creative forms when completing tasks, provides them with the opportunity to be creators, evaluators, and communicators of knowledge. 

Video:  

• Explainer Videos / Video Essays 
• How-to/Tutorial Videos 
• Demo Videos  
• Interview/Q&A 
• Vlog 
• Webinar  

Audio 

• Podcasts  
• Informational interviews    

Written 

• Blogs 
• Articles 
• Mock conference poster 

Resources to support students: 

• The UCC Skills Centre provides a dedicated, responsive and active learning space for the enhancement of study and writing skills. Workshops cover 'academic writing', 'sourcing and cite-seeing', 'building an academic argument', and much more. 
• UCC Library Digital Scholarship Studio.
• UCC Library Podcast Studio. 
• Canva design tool: supports students to design interactive presentations. 

Independent and creative thinking involves recognising creative opportunities and being able to combine ideas, objects, processes, methods, and systems to create innovative products and outcomes. Students should be encouraged to reflect critically on their intellectual performance and analyse and evaluate their practical output. They show initiative and respond to unknowns in an enterprising and innovative manner to achieve positive outcomes to future challenges.

Creative thinking is "the capacity to generate many different kinds of ideas, manipulate ideas in unusual ways and make unconventional connections in order to outline novel possibilities that have the potential to elegantly meet a given purpose". (Australian Council for Educational Research) 

Creative thinkers do not have a passive role in their intellectual journeys rather they have an active role. Creative thinkers seek to exercise control over ideas –they attempt to generate ideas, manipulate ideas and make unconventional connections between them.

In the classroom: 

Thinking about thinking: Rather than focus solely on what they are investigating (i.e. the research question), it is important that students take a step back to reflect on how they are investigating that problem. This is also known as metacognition. One of the most important benefits of metacognition is that it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses as learners or producers of knowledge.

Putting it into practice: Ask students to review notes from your most recent lecture. After reviewing the notes, students should ask themselves the following questions:

1. Before this lecture, what did I already know about this topic? Did my prior knowledge help me better understand what was discussed in the lecture?
2. What was the most difficult part of the lecture for me? What did I find hardest to understand? 
3. What have I learned in the lecture? Has my thinking about the topic changed because of this lecture?

Asking questions such as these helps students to identify their developmental needs. Armed with this information, they can then plan what steps to take to meet those needs. For example, they might decide to (a) re-read the textbook/journal/article; (b) discuss what they are finding difficult with their classmates (shifting perspective); (c) approach their lecturer or tutor for guidance or (d) obtain support from the UCC Skills Centre.

Being prepared to think about their thinking is an essential step on their way to becoming a more independent and creative thinker.

Our initial impressions of a research question may lead us to make swift conclusions. Supporting students to reflect more deeply and shift perspectives can help them to understand is an essential step on their way to becoming more independent and creative thinkers.

Additional resource: 

Tanner, K.D. 2017. Promoting Student Metacognition. CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 11, No. 2. 

UCC graduates will work in a world dependent on digital technology and communication, therefore, digital literacy will best equip them for employment in a digital society. UCC provides opportunities for students to enhance and apply their digital skills for learning, living and working in this digital society.

A Digitally Fluent student: 

• Knows where and how to find and access information quickly and accurately. 
• Can critique the relevance and accuracy of information being accessed. 
• Is an adept producer of digital content. 
• Can recognise and use the most effective methods of reaching their intended audience. 
• Understands and demonstrates how to use digital technologies responsibly, including digital security (self-protection) and copyright.

A digitally fluent person can decide when to use specific digital technologies to achieve their desired outcome. They can articulate why the tools they are using will provide their desired outcome.

In the classroom: 

• Throughout the programme, reinforce where students can find relevant, reputable information. Illustrate the pitfalls of researching a topic online. 
• Encourage the use of various digital tools when setting tasks and assignments. Try to identify where there may be scope for students to make posters using design tools, create videos, develop blogs or record a podcast as part of their coursework. 
• Ensure students understand the impact of misinformation in their field of study, particularly the impact of misinformation being spread online. We want our students to question the information they see online. For people aged between 18 to 24, social media is the most important source of news compared to other age groups. Nearly 40 per cent of people in this age bracket choose social media as their main news source, with 31 per cent choosing other online sources that exclude social media (Silicon Republic 2023). 
• Signpost students to relevant supports within UCC that will help them enhance their digital fluency. 

UCC Library and Skills Centre resources that support the development of digital fluency: 

• Library tutorials. 
• Assignment Essentials. 
• Digital Tools: Learning and Teaching. 
• UCC Skills Centre.
• Digital Passport Digital Badge. 
• Europass Digital Skills Test.

UCC promotes a focus on creating awareness of how individual disciplines and fields of study all play a role in shaping future outcomes: social, health, environmental, and economic. Socially responsible graduates can look at broader issues, community contexts and potential impacts of their field of practice and understand how their actions can enhance the well-being of others to make a valuable and sustainable contribution to society.

• To be socially responsible means that people behave ethically and with awareness towards social, cultural, economic and environmental issues​.
• Social responsibility is a duty of every individual. ​
• Striving for social responsibility helps individuals, communities and society thrive.  

In the classroom: 

• Personal or individual responsibility is being responsible for one’s behaviour. It consists of making informed decisions. We cannot make students socially responsible, but we can encourage them to develop this attribute by highlighting the valuable impact of their field of study on society. 
• Problem-based learning: Encourage students to understand the potential impacts of their field of practice by providing them with societal challenges to solve, either individually or as a group. 
• Community-based research/learning and civic engagement: facilitate students to work with a local/community group/ who are facing a challenge, and identify potential scope for students to work with them to find solutions. 

Resources to explore: 

UCC is part of a global movement of civically engaged higher education institutions. We nurture graduates to become socially responsible and effective global citizens and our teaching staff strive to embed civic and community engagement in the curriculum. This toolkit for the teaching community provides ‘Practice Insights’ articles - sharing practical tools and examples for best practice implementation of community-engaged learning.

• UCC Civic Engagement Toolkit 

Community-based learning has been effectively embedded at Erasmus University Rotterdam with the Impact at the Core project. Impact at the Core enables university staff and students to work with external stakeholders to find solutions to societal problems: