2025 Siyaphumelela Conference - Proposal Guidelines
Proposals
We seek proposals addressing session themes in five different concurrent session formats:
- Siyaphumelela Network Partner Sharing (for Institutional Leads) (20 min presentation and 10 min Q&A): As in previous years, partner institutions have been allocated a space in the conference programme. This year the sharing will be in parallel sessions and focus on a selected session theme. We request that at least one student be included to share their perspective.
- 30-minute Evidence-Based Sharing (20 min presentation and 10 min Q&A discussion): Including the use of data to demonstrate successful strategy execution in one of the session themes and providing strong evidence of success with substantive improvement in student and institutional outcomes.
- Promising Practice Sharing (10 min presentation and 5 min Q&A): Highlighting new or evolving innovation in one of the sub-themes but does not yet have evidence to support widespread adoption and scaling. The aim of the promising practice proposals is to create additional opportunities for the network to participate in the conference. This session may be particularly suited for student presenters or co-presenters.
- Posters: The posters are reimagined for Siyaphumelela 3.0 and are intended to provide an opportunity to a) showcase the visuals and artefacts that have been produced through Siyaphumelela or b) an alternative option for promising practice sharing. These should be broadly aligned to the session themes.
- 90-minute Multi-Institutional Session: Incorporating robust and multi-institutional engagements in a session theme related to work streams, imbizo style discussions, cluster dialogue time – with case study presentations, workshops, etc.
Session Themes
Proposals are encouraged on evidence-based practices for student success within the following themes:
- Student Support – including holistic student supports, academic and peer advising, first year experience, senior student experience, mental health, design/systems thinking, AI chatbots, and gender-focussed interventions.
- Use of Data – including equity performance gaps, tracking and interventions of high impact modules, student tracking, data ethics and governance, know your students and use of AI in data analysis.
- Institutional Change – including student success committees, use of ICAT, student success frameworks, policies, monitoring and evaluation and mental health frameworks.
- Teaching and Learning – including digital transformation and use of AI, learning design, authentic learning and assessment, curriculum, literacy and mathematics, or open education resources
- Student Voice – focussing on how the student voice has been embedded or used to inform student success practices or understand the student journey.
- Beyond Completion – considering employability, graduate attributes, transition to post-graduate studies, self-employment, entrepreneurship etc.
Identifying what Proposal to Submit
Partner Presentations Sessions
PRESENTATION DETAILS
As in previous years, partner institutions have been allocated a 30-minute space with 20-minute presentation and 10-minute discussion in the conference programme. This year the sharing will take place in a parallel session and will focus on a session theme chosen by the institution. We request that at least one student be included to share their perspective.
Presenters: Insert the last name and initials of each presenter in Harvard reference format. The student co-presenter, who is the partner institution’s sponsored student delegate, will need to register for the conference using the token provided.
Presentation Title: The presentation title should provide an overview of the presentation in a maximum of 100 characters including spaces.
Proposal (1500 characters, approximately 250 words)
The narrative should provide proposal reviewers with an accurate and engaging description of the presentation. The description will be included in the Siyaphumelela programme. The narrative should include the following:
- Intended Evidence of Success: Each partner presentation should include intended or actual quantitative or/and qualitative evidence of success.
- Inclusion of Student Perspective: Provide the student’s perspective on the institution’s Siyaphumelela work.
- Taking it to Scale: Describe the planning, strategies, challenges, and success within the scaling process.
- Eliminating Equity Gaps: Illustrate the Siyaphumelela aim of eliminating equity gaps based on socio-economic status, gender and/or race.
- Evaluation: Explain how the work has been (or will be) evaluated, providing examples of key indicators used or planned, and any progress made against your key indicators.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights /or lessons learned that will be shared during your presentation, and who would benefit from these insights
30-minute Evidence-Based Sharing Sessions
PRESENTATION DETAILS
The 30-minute evidence-based sessions are 20-minute presentations with 10-minute discussion. They include the use of data to demonstrate successful strategy execution in one of the session themes and provide strong evidence of success with substantive improvement in student and institutional outcomes.
Presenters: Insert the last name and initials of each presenter in Harvard reference format.
Presentation Title: The presentation title should provide an overview of the presentation in a maximum of 100 characters including spaces.
Proposal (1500 characters, approximately 250 words)
The narrative should provide proposal reviewers with an accurate and engaging description of the presentation. The description will be included in the Siyaphumelela programme. The narrative should include the following:
- Evidence of Success: Each 30-minute session presentation should include quantitative or/and qualitative evidence of success. At least two or more semesters of student success data are strongly encouraged.
- Inclusion of Students: Describe how students have been involved in the implementation practice. Specify the number of students involved as beneficiaries of the intervention or in the sample size of the analysis. Include how student feedback has been incorporated.
- Taking it to Scale: Describe the planning, strategies, challenges, and success within the scaling process.
- Eliminating Equity Gaps: Illustrate the Siyaphumelela aim of eliminating equity gaps based on socio-economic status, gender and/or race.
- Evaluation: Explain how the work has been (or will be) evaluated, providing examples of specific indicators being used or planned.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights or lessons learned that will be shared during your presentation, and who would benefit from these insights
Promising Practice Sharing
PROMISING PRACTICE DETAILS
The Promising Practice sharing sessions are 15 minutes with 10-minute presentations and 5-minute discussion. These can highlight new or evolving innovations in one of the session themes but do not yet have evidence to support widespread adoption and scaling. The aim of the promising practice proposals is to create additional opportunities for the network to participate in the conference. This session may be particularly suited for student presenters or co-presenters.
Presenters: Insert the last name and initials of each presenter in Harvard reference format.
Presentation Title: The presentation title should provide an overview of the presentation in a maximum of 100 characters including spaces.
Proposal (1500 characters, approximately 250 words)
The narrative should provide proposal reviewers with an accurate and engaging description of the presentation. The description will be included in the Siyaphumelela programme. The narrative should include the following:
- Evidence of Success: Include a description of the quantitative and qualitative evidence being collected to determine the effectiveness of the strategy.
- Inclusion of Students: Describe how students have been involved in the implementation practice. Specify the number of students involved as beneficiaries of the intervention.
- Taking it to Scale: Describe how it could be scaled if successful.
- Eliminating Equity Gaps: Illustrate the Siyaphumelela aim of eliminating equity gaps based on socio-economic status, gender and/or race.
- Evaluation: Explain how the work has been (or will be) evaluated.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights or lessons learned thus far that will be shared during your presentation, and who would benefit from these insights.
Poster Details
POSTER DETAILS
The posters are reimagined for Siyaphumelela 3.0 and are intended to provide an opportunity to a) showcase the visuals that have been produced through Siyaphumelela or b) an alternative promising practice sharing. These should be broadly aligned to the session themes.
- We would like to provide partners and regional networks a platform to share the illustrations, visuals or artefacts that have been produced arising from Siyaphumelela work. For example, these could be visual depictions of student success work at your institution, or regional network, historic visuals that were produced in previous years, illustrations of student success frameworks or other frameworks, infographics or interesting artefacts.
- We also encourage posters as an alternative opportunity for promising practice sharing, which could share new or evolving student success innovations, or new perspectives or understandings of student success. This session may be particularly suited for student presenters or co-presenters.
Still to be confirmed, the intention is to display the posters in the plenary venue, with opportunities provided in the conference programme for delegates to engage with the posters and their presenters. A webinar specifically for poster presenters with tips on how to produce a good quality poster will be held prior to the conference. Successful posters must be printed professionally following specific guidelines that will be provided later.
Presenters: Insert the last name and initials of each presenter in Harvard reference format. Specify if the presenter or co-presenter is a student.
Presentation Title: The Poster title should provide an overview of the poster in a maximum of 100 characters including spaces.
Proposal (1500 characters, approximately 250 words)
The narrative should provide proposal reviewers with an accurate and engaging description of the poster. The description may be included in the Siyaphumelela programme.
The narrative should be different for the different poster types.
As a guideline for a) Visuals the narrative should include the following:
- Background: Background to the visual depiction or artefact that was produced, including who produced it, when it was produced, why it was produced, and how it was used or will be used.
- Description: Narrative describing the visual depiction, concept or artefact that has been produced.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights or lessons learned and who would benefit from these insights.
For b) Alternative format for sharing promising practices, the narrative should include the following:
- Evidence of Success: Include a description of the quantitative and/or qualitative evidence being collected to determine the effectiveness of the promising practice strategy or intervention.
- Inclusion of Students: Describe how students have been involved in the implementation practice. Specify the number of students involved as beneficiaries of the intervention.
- Taking it to Scale: Describe how it could be scaled if successful.
- Eliminating Equity Gaps: Illustrate the Siyaphumelela aim of eliminating equity gaps based on socio-economic status, gender and/or race.
- Evaluation: Explain how the work has been (or will be) evaluated.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights or lessons learned that will be shared during your presentation, and who would benefit from these insights
90-minute Multi-Institutional Sessions
PRESENTATION DETAILS
The 90-minute sessions incorporate robust and multi-institutional engagements related to work streams, imbizo style sessions, cluster dialogues, in depth engagement on a student success theme with case study presentations and discussions, workshop, etc.,
Presenters: Insert the last name and initials of each presenter in Harvard reference format. If successful, the additional presenters will need to register for the conference using the 90-minute session code generated by the system.
Proposal Title: The title should provide an overview of the session in a maximum of 100 characters including spaces.
Proposal (1500 characters, approximately 250 words)
The narrative should provide proposal reviewers with an accurate and engaging description of the session. The description will be included in the Siyaphumelela programme. The narrative should include the following:
- Proposed Outline of the Session: This should include a draft outline of the session. Proposals that are structured around presentations only, without discussion, are discouraged, unless the session involves case study presentations by multiple institutions on a session theme.
- Session Outcomes: Explain the session outcomes. What will the delegates learn or be able to do after the session and how is this work relevant to advancing student success?
- Student Inclusion: Specify how students will be involved in the session.
- Eliminating Equity Gaps: Illustrate the Siyaphumelela aim of eliminating equity gaps based on socio-economic status, gender and/or race.
- Key insights: Describe any helpful insights or lessons learned that will be shared during your session, and who would benefit from these insights.
- Delegate Engagement: Explain how delegates will be engaged in authentic learning in the session.
