Open Plan Rooms at Solent

I foresee major issues with confidentiality, our ability to deliver appropriate and sensitive pastoral care. In the last 10 years I have supported students who have experienced rape, unwanted pregnancies and abortions, parental bereavement, serious mental health issues, cancer and a brain tumour. I cannot imagine being able to deliver that support in an openplan office, nor manage the additional phone calls etc that these cases require, without seriously compromising confidentiality and duty of care.

Given that this hasn't worked in other places I can't see any logic in implementing it here. The more people in an office the more distractions, higher chance us annoying each other and no privacy who so ever. There may be other spaces to talk to students but what about handling private telephone calls? And when the flu season comes it will be a very efficient way of spreading it.

This raises confidentiality issues with students and also I believe means that staff will work less efficiently due to less ability to concentrate.

A counterproductive measure that will raise real concern for students with issues they wish to discuss confidentially.

I do not agree with the introduction of open plan rooms

I am concerned that the open plan office will not be conducive to concentration or privacy. It will be hard to focus with so many other people coming & going and have phone conversations. It will also be awkward for seeing students, especially in sensitive situations, of which there always a few - they will not wish to expose themselves to other lecturers/students if feeling vulnerable, thus we may well miss problems. I am also disturbed that there are no windows near nmy designated space - it feel claustrophobic. I am ware that there is research supporting the need for people to have access to daylight, fresh air and a prospect of the outdoors for mental & emotional health, Sitting in a boxed space without any of this is not desirable at all. We have not been consulted at all on this which sends an interesting message to us on how our opinions are viewed.

Would make doing the job harder - act against accademic behaviour including research

I have particular concerns for how it will impact on our relationships with students who applaud and open door policy that will not work in this system

Having worked in an 'Open Plan' enviroment in the past I am only too aware of the limitations with regard to confidentiality and pastoral care, which are essential for a effective and efficient relationship with students.

I am really concerned about the impact not only on staff but particularly for students. We have always prided ourselves on our accessibility to students , indeed it is a cornerstone of the Solent reputation.

The nature of our work requires us to have several one to one meetings with our students and other members of staff that are often of a confidential nature. Open Plan rooms would render this almost impossible to do. In addition as academics we need to be able to research and mark in an environment where we will not be interrupted, impossible in open plan rooms. If imposed It will result in academics having to spend more time away from their work to get their work done.

Open plan rooms will have real affect on the service delivery to my students.

I will have 6 dissertation students next year and would find it very difficult to provide effective supervision if i need to book the meeting rooms each time I meet with them. I would also find it difficult to prepare for my teaching sessions without adequate space to store my textbooks and journals.

I am concerned that as both myself and my students must adhere to professional codes of conduct relating to clinical practice and we are required to mantain confidentiality. Confidentiality has the potential to be breached within an open plan office, where not everyone is bound by the same codes. Issues discussed with students, mentors and managers (often on the phone) may relate to safeguarding issues, fitness to practice or similar matters.

I have read reports from other academic institutions and LARGE open plan office space do not help to achieve good NSS scores. Our students need to have a safe haven to come to for support both pastoral and academic. We need a quiet space to create good teaching material and for a practical subject places to store real life teaching material.

I currently share an office with three other academics and all of us have to have one-on-one meetings with students; the environment is already noisy and not conducive to reasonable levels of concentration. In addition, there has been no consultation over this matter.

I have worked in open plan environments and the science on this is clear- it actually decreases productivity and stops people from concentrating. This sounds like a stupid idea passed with little thought or consideration of the people that have to operate in these spaces. Maybe the people suggesting them should also have an open plan office?

Academic work requires periods of sustained concentration and focus. How this might be possible in a noisy, busy environment, with a lot of people and movement is beyond my comprehension. I can only conclude that this initiative is part of a managerialist agenda to increase control over academic staff. The lack of consultation tends to support this interpretation.

I would like to understand why moving to an open office is in anyway positive .

We already have major issues to deal with regarding the NSS, semesterisation, retention, research, consultancy and, most importantly, student angst over the student-academic interface. Under these new arrangements, students just cannot get to see tutors with any level of ease. It becomes an invasion of Course Leader/student and tutor/student privacy, does not display or have sufficient pastoral care and is a massive degradation of the student/tutor relationship.