The University of Liverpool are innovators in the Careers and Employability, with a number of achievements in their history. They were the first institution in the UK to introduce peer-to-peer careers mentoring with their Career Coaches. And in 2024, they won multiple awards that celebrated the innovative work they’ve been doing with Bodyswaps. You can take a more in-depth look at this work in our article with them in the AGCAS journal: Phoenix.
The university currently runs a dual deployment, allowing individual access to Bodyswaps via their frontline Career Studio service, supported by dedicated Career Coaches in private spaces, as well as curriculum-based usage of Bodyswaps for assessments.
It was a typically rainy day in Liverpool when Laura stopped by their campus, excited for the day ahead.
Thanks to Matt, Jason, and Sophie from Liverpool’s Careers and Employability team, Laura was able to drop in and observe exactly how Bodyswaps is integrated into the first year’s politics employability module assessment, in collaboration with module convenor, Dr Andrew Routledge.
Our Public Speaking & Presentation Skills module forms the first part of a public speaking assessment ladder, which then feeds into the whole assessment of the compulsory, first-year skills and methods module which has been designed to act as a vehicle for employability and professional development.
To begin with, students are introduced to the ladder approach and Bodyswaps in a lecture ahead of sessions to show them what’s to come. This could include a live casting of the public speaking training to build awareness of the nature of the VR experience.
Previously, students booked onto a VR slot, but this year the team partnered with Timetabling to allocate each student with a timetabled slot to complete the assessment – there can be up to 9 students per session in a space set up by the team.
The University of Liverpool has a mobile VR approach that allows them to deliver sessions in any of the rooms that are available on campus and assigned to them. They transport headsets in specialised VR storage (Onero-X Charge and Go) and ensure they have headphones (Lindy) to increase privacy during the experience.
The team ensures that all the headsets are set up with boundaries and that the Bodyswaps app is prepared ahead of the students’ arrival for the session.