I’m a computer scientist by background and one of my former academic colleagues, when he was teaching students how to programme computers, liked to give useful advice and top tips for being a useful and productive programmer. His No 1 Top Tip that you should do before starting on any project was Build yourself a nice place to work. That tip applies to any project, not just writing computer software and what he means by Build yourself a nice place to work is to create yourself a good working environment in which all the tools and resources you will need are setup, organised, ready to use and at hand for when you need to use them in a task.

We are all now adjusting to remote working and working in very different ways than we were a few weeks ago. Building yourself a nice place work is equally important in being prepared for remotely providing personal tutoring and academic advising to your students. It’s an important first step, and once you know what tools you have available, where they are, and that they are ready for use, you will find it easier to advise and tutor online.

So, you need to know what tools are available to you, and how and why you might use them. But before you can do this, you first need to identify what exactly it is that you want to do and achieve with your students. Until you know that, you can’t make a sensible evaluation of what tools might be useful to you.

In this step-by-step guide we’ll help you identify the activities you want to engage in with your students to provide effective remote tutoring/advising. Answer the questions on the following page to identify what activities you need to support, and to get some guidance on possible technologies and approaches you can use to deliver that activity remotely.