Support and promotional resources

The learning and teaching centre recommends that ACU staff follow the following guidelines when using ACU Unitpulse:

1. ACU Unitpulse is an online tool for formative evaluation, aimed at quality assurance and enhancement of learning and teaching within a unit. The purpose of ACU Unitpulse is to collect immediate feedback from students, and for staff to respond in an appropriate time frame.
2. ACU Unitpulse will be accessible to staff a week before the start of a study period.
3. In the standard study periods (i.e., semesters 1 and 2), final questions should be posted in week 8 and staff responses to students' queries and feedback should be made by week 9 of the semester. At the end of Week 9, units included for ACU Unitpulse will be made inactive in preparation for the student evaluation of learning and teaching (SELT) surveys which will start in week 10.
4. Questions to students need to be specific and purposely directed at what is helping or hindering student learning. Examples of questions are available on this page.
5. Staff are not permitted to use the SELT survey items as ACU Unitpulse questions.
6. It is required that staff respond to student feedback. Responses can be sent to individual students, groups of students or all students. If staff elect to respond to feedback in class or via other LEO communication tools, students are to be informed of the communication strategy through ACU Unitpulse.
7. Ideally, staff should respond to student feedback within 24 hours of the question expiry time.
8. If a student supplied confidential feedback that indicates they are experiencing issues with the unit, the facility to follow up on a one-on-one basis with the student should be used as appropriate.
9. The data collection process through ACU Unitpulse does not comply with HREC. While staff may wish to use student comments collected through ACU Unitpulse in confidential performance review and planning discussions with their supervisors, the student feedback (including comments) cannot be used for research and publication purposes.
10. If a staff member receives abusive of offensive feedback from students, they can notify the learning and teaching centre (LTC) through Evaluations.ltc@acu.edu.au.

Central Pulse enables the downloading of an instructor’s report that enables lecturers to see an overall picture of the activity in the unit. This information can be downloaded for your records in an excel file:

Select 'My reports' from Central Pulse:

At 'My reports', you can select the unit you would like to generate a report for.

Ensure that you have selected the relevant time period for the report you require. If you have previously generated a report you can click on 'Update now' for a recent version:

To help students engage with ACU Unitpulse, please encourage them to download the mobile phone app. The app can also be used by lecturers to post questions.

The instructions are as follows:

1. Download the Bluepulse app from your device's app store onto your phone,
2. Sign in to Bluepulse (Unitpulse) in another device (PC, laptop or Ipad),
3. Select the gear icon in the top right corner, then profile settings,
4. Select show my QR code, then scan your code with your mobile phone,
5. Use the Bluepulse app to respond to your instructor's questions and submit confidential feedback.

Please note that to stop notifications from the app, the settings need to be adjusted on your mobile phone.

The following video, produced by eXplorance, the vendor of this product may be useful in showing students how ACU Unitpulse works: