4.1
Welcome at the universities (of applied sciences) (by experts by experience)

It was generally clear that experts by experience see a good reception and welcome in the higher education institution as very important. Whether this is done by a member of the organization/association, by a lecturer or by a member of the higher education institute, a human contact is necessary.

They gave the following tips that can facilitate this welcome:

• Receive the expert by experience outside the classroom. Explain the profile of the students, the subject or the framework from which the training is developed, its objectives and the general context. Make a formal presentation of the expert for the students.
• Make an appointment, without bureaucratic burden and simply let them listen to you and listen.
• Provide a welcome package and make sure everything it contains is clear. Make sure there is an opportunity for clarification.
• Not everyone wants to be part of a group /meetings. It is important that people have options.

We would like to share here what experts by experience find important at the individual level and at the organizational level to get involved as experts by experience, what a warm welcome can mean and what they think should be in a guide for experts by experience to get involved in higher education.

• The way you feel welcome at the institution makes you feel equal alongside lecturers.

• Inform colleagues of the arrival of the expert by experience, so that they know who these people are and what their goal is. Work on prejudices.

• The fact that the university sees us as equals. That the contact persons at the university convey that what we do and what we bring with us is valuable and important knowledge. That we are met with respect, and we notice that. This must go both ways.
• Policy documents/ formal documents on involving experts by experience in education. It is important to develop a general guideline for experts by experience in education. However, it is necessary to regularly scrutinise them and supplement them with any new insights.

• We need systems and processes.

• A cooperation agreement (secondment from the organization of users) is necessary. It is important to define everyone’s role well. A more formalized collaboration agreement is needed. A contract provides a guarantee for both employer and employee, regardless of its status. So this is an important fact for both parties.

No staff contract ensures that many things do not automatically follow. It really depends on the commitment of individuals at different levels within the colleges (lecturers, experts, managers,…). When this is missing, it falls apart because there are no formal agreements.

• Welcome can be nice, but if practical/substantive aspects are not seen, it will ultimately not work. Practical support must be person-oriented, tailor-made; what you need is unique for each person. Finding your way, practically and in relation to content
• e-mail-adress, internet-connection, printing facilities, library access

The e-mail address from the higher education institution is fundamental to me, it allows me to keep work and private life separate, which is very important to me.

• The staff card helps me work independently; I like not being dependent in this respect
• A laptop provided by the higher education institute, I don’t have and don’t want, I don’t feel like taking care of (other people’s) stuff.
• Lunch

• parking facilities or a travel fee

• I find the relaxation room a very nice facility, it’s an escape point, a time-out, let things sink in for a while. This could also be a teachers room for example.

Also knowing which meeting rooms we can use and tea and coffee would be nice.

• Also present were ‘anchor persons’ and a coach (from one of the strong students).
• Anchor persons can be teachers/researchers who are quartermasters, buddies or liaisons for the co-teachers with experiental knowledge. It varies for each person what that anchor person does, depending on the needs.
• Anchor person for contract, reimbursement, mediation
• That I know who to ask questions to and that they give answers to questions when I have them.

• The anchor person in our University of Applied Sciences does the matching and the organisation. If she gets a question from a lecturer, she looks for an EBE with the right experience. She gives the EBE the first practical info (date, assignment…) and in case of an agreement to cooperate, she brings the EBE in contact with the lecturer. The latter takes up the content/course preparation and cooperation. The anchor figure takes care of the payment of the volunteer allowance, a lunch and a rail pass.
• I have a colleague who communicates in a very autism-friendly way, which is fine, but not all colleagues have to (learn to) do it that way.
• Renumeration/payment is needed.

Payment by the hour would be good, but social good can also be the motivation.

Some experts by experience work by hour, others by project. Payment according to the university’s standards (a salary) is necessary.

We get paid the same rate as associate lecturers (UK)

It is possible for people to receive vouchers if they are doing one off pieces of work. Payment systems are quite inflexible it would be better for people to choose and take responsibility for managing their finances.

We get a voluntary fee for each activity at the University and sign every year a  contract of a volunteer with the University of Applied sciences. The anchor knows the legislation about voluntary work, takes care of the permission to do voluntary work and keeps a registration of our activities. We can combine the voluntary fee with our social benefits.

We need payment on time.

• Mostly the involvement of the expert by experience grew organically. There is no framework. It has to come from us, actually it should be organized from the school, higher education. And from here describe a competence profile for experts by experience.

It’s too non-committal now. The structures of higher education make it difficult to structurally anchor experts by experience (e.g. no staff member=no mail, no newsletter, no teams,…). The lack of structures keeps experts by experience under the radar, it remains the responsibility of a few individuals to keep this going (triggers).

7 topics in the Toolkit

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Read more about the seven work packages

1. Key educational principles 
2. Guide with didactical and pedagogical methods 
3. Training programme for lecturers
4. A support kit for experts by experience
5. Framework for integrating experiential knowledge
6. Digital forum with state-of-the-art literature
7. Monitoring and evaluation 

Articles:
A support kit for experts by experience