Inkpath

Inkpath is the lifelong skills and career development platform. Northern Bridge Consortium has made this service available to its studentship award-holders, giving you free access to this tool, for life. Your Inkpath portfolio will stay with you throughout your career at this and other institutions.

Accessed via a mobile app or on the web, with Inkpath you can record all your training and personal development activities in one place. This can include formal and informal, past and future, internal and external training and other activity. Seminars, conferences, publications, meetings and projects can all contribute to your portfolio.

With Inkpath, you will discover the best training available offered by the consortium and tailored specifically to your needs. Wherever the event occurs and whoever is the provider, all events are brought together in one place where you can search and filter to find opportunities for you. Inkpath shows you key information about each event and directs you directly to the relevant booking page. You can reflect on your development and understand your next steps.

You retain access to the platform and all this information, for life. Your information builds into a rich portfolio of activity, mapped against the Vitae Researcher Development Framework. This record of your activity, evidence and notes can all be exported when the time comes to write CVs, report on your activity or apply for your next position or funding.

Get Started with Inkpath

Download Inkpath from Google Play, the App Store or visit www.inkpath.co.uk. You can also access Inkpath from a web browser, if you prefer.

Select User login then Sign up.

Select your host institution from the Organisation list, and enter your university Email address. Read and Accept the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy then click Sign up. We’ll cover how your data is protected below.

In Settings, click My Funding Sources to link your record to the Northern Bridge Consortium.

Build your profile Settings by adding the name of your School or Department; your Programme; and the Year you started your studentship award. You can return to these settings by clicking on the …More button in the navigation bar.

We’d encourage you to take a few minutes to complete the Skills Analysis (or Training Needs Analysis) questionnaire when prompted. It will not lock you in to your choice of training needs. These will develop with your research and you’ll have the opportunity to update your requirements as you progress.

Navigating Inkpath

Skills

Here, you can view all activities mapped to the Vitae Researcher Development Framework; and see the time you’ve spent improving each skill.
You can explore further activities based on skills of interest.
You can analyse and reflect on your personal development through the Skills Analysis questionnaire.

Goals

Here, you can explore goals, skills-based or pathways set by Northern Bridge. This section will develop as our use of Inkpath grows.
In the meantime, you can create your own custom goals to set personal targets, see your progress and understand next steps.

Activities

Here, you’ll discover, explore and record activities offered by Northern Bridge with description, provider, timings, location, skills, booking link, mapped location, automatic calendar entry. We anticipate that the majority of the training we offer will be booked via Inkpath.
You can record custom activities, and use privacy settings to control the visibility of these to your home institution.
You can export a detailed record of all activities attended – the perfect raw material for your CV.
You can attach notes, photos and/or file evidence to your attendance records.
You can provide feedback to training administrators.
And, you’ll use a single QR code scan your attendance and add an activity and all its details to your portfolio. The QR code is sent to the trainer just prior to the event. You simply scan it to record your attendance.

Questions?

If you have any questions about using Inkpath, please email northernbridge.admin@newcastle.ac.uk in the first instance. We’ll add responses to frequently asked questions to the list below:

Why Inkpath?

Inkpath enables the Northern Bridge Consortium to manage a number of cohort development and training events for all its award-holders across seven institutions on one platform. As an award-holder, you’ll have a single, consistent means by which you can access available training and book your place. For Northern Bridge managers and directors, it helps us provide our funder, the AHRC, with essential details on training and engagement.

Does Inkpath replace the training and development recording system(s) at my home institution?

No, and this is very important: if your home institution operates systems by which you record your training and development and which may, for example, feed into activities such as your annual progress review, you should continue to use those systems as directed. Inkpath will include Northern Bridge Consortium-funded activities only. While we would generally encourage you to also use Inkpath to make your own record of any other activities you undertake, to take advantage of its lifetime access and export facility, you are not obliged to. That will be at your discretion and we would not want to insist on duplicate effort.

Other than training arranged by Northern Bridge, what else should record in Inkpath?

Any individual activity directly arising from your studentship. For example, we expect all award-holders to report on any placements, fieldwork, impact, conference presentation, and specific training, etc., you have received funding to undertake, via Northern Bridge. You can do this via the home screen in Inkpath and Create Activity, where you’ll find a number of Activity Type options to choose from. You can mark these as Private, but reporting on funded individual activities is mandatory and, if not via Inkpath, you will be asked to provide a report for AHRC Annual Reporting purposes.

Is my data safe?

Yes, and your data is yours. Inkpath are fully compliant with General Data Protection Regulation and, in that respect, act as a ‘data processor’ for any personal data about you provided by you or by the Northern Bridge Consortium. To allay concerns, we strongly suggest you read their Privacy Policy at: https://www.app.inkpath.co.uk/law/privacy_policy

Inkpath Resources

Website: www.inkpath.co.uk

Twitter: @InkpathUK

Facebook: @InkpathUK

There are a range of user training material published via the Inkpath website with video content hosted on Vimeo:

Teaser video (Sam’s Journey): https://www.inkpath.co.uk/for-students-and-researchers/#video-sams-journey

New user induction video: https://www.inkpath.co.uk/user-induction/

User support material: https://www.inkpath.co.uk/help-and-support/