For Doctoral Training Partnerships

What is Inkpath?.

Make your training or professional development programme a breeze to run

Running a training or professional development programme, center or initiative? Inkpath is the management platform you have been looking for. Inkpath combines two parts. First, a powerful, easy-to-use programme and event management portal for administrators and managers, with a powerful event booking engine, clever automations and professional development tools, and rich data reporting. And second, a lifelong professional development app for end users, accessible as a mobile app or browser-based webapp, which serves as their ‘career GPS’, helping them to navigate their professional development, form a plan, and reflect on their path ahead, with automated, context-sensitive suggestions for next steps.

One integrated portal into opportunity, accessible to all

Developed and run by education and technology professionals, Inkpath is used by organisations operating at the cutting edge of professional development. If you want a robust, dynamic platform that will engage your people, capturing rich data about their activities within and beyond your organisation, then you have found the right place to look. And if you want to be part of a community of partners working closely with us to drive innovation in professional development across a range of exciting spaces, then be sure to read on!

Inkpath video animation.

Case study: Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership.

”During the pandemic, we held many back-to-back virtual training sessions. Before we started using Inkpath, I was tasked with manually inputting attendance information for each conference session into several spreadsheets. Now, everything is in one place, students can book themselves onto each training session and there is a clear record of what they’ve selected. No more spreadsheets!” – Training and Collaboration Coordinator, Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership

About

Northern Bridge Consortium is a Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) bringing together cutting-edge expertise and exceptional resources of seven universities and their non-HE partner organisations.The DTP offers around 70 funded studentships per year to outstanding postgraduate researchers across the full range of Arts and Humanities subjects, and students benefit from supervision, training and development of the highest quality, tailored to their needs.

The challenge

The DTP needed to streamline its training and events booking system to simplify the process for staff and students alike, so looked to Inkpath to provide a more efficient way to manage its training and development programme.

“Before we started using the platform, I spent a lot of time sending out email reminders about our training programmes.”

“I’d add and remove people to and from waiting lists, and I’d manage the whole booking process manually. I wanted a platform to make this a much easier and more efficient process, for both staff and students.”

Automated waiting lists and reminder notifications

Automated waiting lists and reminder notifications have taken the stress out of running events. Students can simply scan their training into the Inkpath app, and verify their attendance, providing feedback while they do so. There is no need to enter their attendance into other systems manually.

“Today, I no longer have to constantly check bookings. I used to get so many emails from students regarding training events, but now all enquiries and information is in one place. All details are now just a click away for me and for our students.”

Tailored training

With Inkpath, students can discover the best training available tailored specifically to their needs. Wherever the event occurs and whoever delivers the course, all events are brought together in one place. Inkpath shows you key information about each event and directs you to the relevant booking page.
Students also retain access to the platform and all this information, for life, enabling them to build a rich portfolio of activity. This record of activity, evidence and notes can all be exported when the time comes to write CVs or apply for funding.

Activity tracking

As well as streamlining the training and development booking process, the DTP can now record placement and activities for students. It has been using the platform to track alumni, too.Tracking these activities allows Northern Bridge to report back to its funder on the impact of the funding received both during and after students have undertaken their projects with the DTP.

“Through the Inkpath platform, we can also collate reports for the annual Arts and Humanities Research Council review to report back on engagement and results. Before having the system, we would have to manually hunt for these and gather all of the information ourselves, which was really time consuming.”

Case study: Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP.

”The Inkpath team have been brilliant! They offer friendly and prompt support to administrators and users alike. The team work closely with us to make sure they understand what we’re trying to do and how they can support our work. The Inkpath platform, both the user app and the administration interface, are intuitive and easy to navigate.” – Manager, Open-Oxford-Cambridge Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)

About

One of ten Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Partnerships across the UK, the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP brings together the Open University, the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge to provide funding and high-quality training to doctoral students in the arts and humanities.

The challenge

To deliver an efficient method for administering Training Needs Analysis, provide a joined-up experience for students from three diverse institutions, and help staff to focus on design and delivery by reducing administrative overheads.

90% students using Inkpath

Following an Inkpath team led induction, at least 90% of students have created and started using their Inkpath account.

Automated participation tracking

Substantial resources and staff time saved through automatic attendance logging and feedback collation via QR codes.

Unified catalogue

Seamless discovery and navigation of activities, unifying training provision across three large universities.

60% TNA completion in 2 weeks

Without any paper and using a fully automated process, approximately 60% of students completed their Training Needs Analysis in two weeks.

Case study: London Arts & Humanities Project (LAHP) DTP.

About

The London Arts & Humanities Project (LAHP) was created in 2014 as an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) and now includes eight London-based universities.

Application

The LAHP provides PhD students with an extensive program of training in practical research skills and offers opportunities to experience first-hand the workings of some of London’s greatest cultural institutions.

The Challenge

The LAHP offers a wide range of training and cohort development opportunities to all students working across the consortium and its member institutions. The aim of LAHP training is to complement existing training provided by individual HEIs through an integrated structure comprising skills training, networking and events. As a result, the training offered is constantly changing and evolving, and LAHP were looking for a solution that provided all the information students need to locate and attend their training, in one accessible and intuitive system.

The LAHP team were also looking to rationalise the events management process, specifically to tackle the issue of students failing to attend sessions without notifying the events team, and available spaces then being unallocated.

Results

Improving the administration process

With an implementation period of just two weeks, the LAHP and Inkpath teams worked together to install the unified training and skills development portal for students.

Before Inkpath, the LAHP’s events booking system was fragmented. Information was often spread across multiple platforms; from Google forms to web page and email, making handling booking details a time consuming, manual process. Automated waiting lists and reminder notifications, and a no-show management system now better support event engagement and attendance.

Inkpath’s in-app booking has further made life easier for the LAHP administrators who can now set up activities with just a few clicks. Users simply click ‘book a place’ in the Inkpath app.

A user-centred platform

The LAHP team were looking for a platform that put the user front and centre; facilitating an easy and efficient way for students to access training, and to further develop their skills.

Students can now create a portfolio of their training activities and experiences through the app. The LAHP team believe this will incentivise them to think about their CV in a way they couldn’t do before, as it allows them to take ownership of their training and, as all activities are mapped to the Researcher Development Framework, provides a tracked catalogue of the skills they still need to acquire.

“DTPs tend to be run on very small teams, so we have quite a lot of work to do when it comes to developing and administering training. Inkpath has really helped to ease this, as well as enable us to deliver more high-quality training.” –Lewis Knapp, LAHP Support Officer.

“With Inkpath, we can brief students comprehensively on how they can complete a training needs analysis by connecting the Researcher Development Framework planner to the training we offer. Now students can join the dots, and they can see which skills they have picked up and those they still need to acquire – through Inkpath students develop a sense of what we mean by training self-analysis and skills.” – Prof. Tony Fisher, LAHP Deputy Director/Head of Training and Cohort Development.

“Inkpath has helped us streamline our processes and made it much easier for students to see what’s on offer, reflect on their own needs and select the training that can meet those needs. It also gives us useful insights into how students are engaging with our training. The Inkpath team got us up and running with the platform quickly and have been very responsive and supportive to work with.” – Professor Johanna Malt, LAHP Director.