Interactive Wellbeing Maps: Experiences from a compulsory undergraduate GIS assessment

Navigating the transition to university life can negatively impact on student wellbeing, with poor mental health and lower levels of life satisfaction increasingly reported amongst university students. Moving away from home, managing workloads and financial pressures are often identified as some of the top concerns impacting student wellbeing. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds, international students, mature students, LGBTQIA+ students and neurodiverse students have also been identified as more likely to be affected by wellbeing issues, alongside those who have experienced bereavement or trauma, asylum seekers and refugees, and students with underlying health conditions. 
Acknowledging these challenges, this paper describes and reflects on the design and implementation of a first-year undergraduate creative mapping exercise focusing on student wellbeing. This forms part of the assessment in a large (200+ students) compulsory GIS module in the School of Geography at the University of Nottingham. Students are asked to create an individual interactive wellbeing map appropriate to a first-year undergraduate student at the University using ArcGIS Online. They are supported to explore and reflect on what wellbeing is, what it looks like or means to them, and to become familiar with the support services, activities, places or facilities across the University of Nottingham's Park Campus that might support and nurture positive wellbeing experiences. Students are provided with GIS cartographic training in ArcGIS Online to facilitate the completion of their personalised digital wellbeing map that serves as a point of reference during their academic studies. This assessment was designed by the GIS team in the School of Geography in conjunction with the University of Nottingham’s Wellbeing and support team. It has successfully run over the last five years reaching over 1000 students and tackling contemporary topics including the COVID-19 pandemic and current cost-of-living crisis. 
This paper will focus specifically on how wellbeing was woven into the delivery of this compulsory first-year module GIS curriculum.  It will explore the decisions behind the GIS content included, software and technologies used, the placement of this wellbeing task in the wider pastoral School of Geography undergraduate programme alongside the choice to build creative opportunities into the assessment to further promote wellbeing. Experiences from the last five years will be shared from staff and student feedback, reflecting on some of the challenges and sensitivities encountered alongside showing some examples of the wellbeing maps themselves. It is hoped that this paper will inspire practitioners to consider the impact and position of their modules (particularly large first-year compulsory teaching groups) to tackle and raise awareness of student wellbeing, alongside the impact of creative assessment as a positive engagement opportunity for students.