Unit evaluations 2023/24

For standard UG and PGT units, and for each semester, the University asks all students to complete unit evaluations about their course. For some longer units or year long units you may want to ask students to evaluate the unit twice.

Unit evaluations for the first and second semesters of the 2023/24 academic year will be open between the following dates:

Semester 1

Each of the tasks such as open and close dates as well as the reminder emails are generated around 11.45 p.m. on the date shown above. However, the emails to students are then generated and sent over a period of a few hours after that on the following day e.g. Management students will have received the emails during the early hours of Friday 24 November and the OUEs would close at approximately 11.45 p.m. on Monday 18 December.

Semester 2

Each of the tasks such as open and close dates as well as the reminder emails are generated around 11.45 p.m. on the date shown above. However, the emails to students are then generated and sent over a period of a few hours after that on the following day e.g. Management students will have received the emails during the early hours of Monday 8 April and the OUEs would close at approximately 11.45 p.m. on Sunday 5 May.

To achieve a high response rate, please encourage your students to complete their unit evaluation. When surveys are open, please remind your students during in-person teaching sessions, by email and via any other communication channels that you regularly use to contact students. You can monitor your unit's response rate throughout the survey period (VPN required).

You can direct your students to our webpages for students about unit evaluations so that they can find information about completing the unit evaluation, giving constructive feedback, and how their data is anonymised, stored and used. They can also find information about the student and department prize draws.

Please reassure students of the value of their feedback. This is their opportunity to provide anonymous feedback about programme curricula, teaching and assessment, and help feed into University strategy and ongoing enhancement of our learning and teaching.

Unit Induction and Closing the feedback loop

In the first couple of weeks of teaching, you should ‘close the feedback loop’ by informing current students about the previous year’s OUE results. You should talk to them in a teaching session about what has been praised about the unit and what previous students thought should be changed or improved. You should explain the changes you have made in response to the feedback and why some suggested changes cannot be made, for example for pedagogical or professional accreditation reasons. Encourage your students to read the unit’s completed feedback report on Moodle.

Throughout the unit, employing a ‘stop, start, continue’ approach to feedback facilitates continuous dialogue between students and staff. This informal feedback can be achieved through various means, such as surveys, in-class polls or simply talking to students. An example could be asking students if more time is needed for solving problem questions in a seminar. The structure of following seminars can then be adapted in line with feedback. If deemed more appropriate, informal feedback can be collected ‘mid-unit’ so that there is adequate time to make changes before formal OUEs at the end of the unit.

Setting up a unit evaluation and choosing questions

The Unit Convenor can set up the unit evaluation by clicking on the Evaluation tab in SAMIS. Full instructions for setting up a unit evaluation can be found on the Centre for Learning & Teaching wiki.

Core questions have been agreed for all units (standard, distance learning, placement, study abroad, combined placement and study abroad, and professional doctorate). In addition, two discretionary questions may be added to unit evaluation surveys (and up to four for distance learning units only). Departmental Learning & Teaching Quality Committees should decide which two discretionary questions are asked and who has responsibility for selecting them (for example, Unit Convenors or Directors of Study). If your DLTQC meeting does not fit the time period, please use Chair’s Actions following conversations with staff and students where appropriate.

See the full list of core and discretionary questions for unit evaluations.

Encouraging students to provide constructive feedback

Students can be reassured that their responses to unit evaluations will be anonymised.

Students are required to read and sign a statement confirming that they agree to provide constructive feedback before they can complete the evaluations and that it is in line with the Dignity & Respect Policy and Procedure. This is to clarify to students what kind of feedback is appropriate and help address staff concerns around unhelpful and offensive comments.

We would actively encourage you to report any offensive or discriminatory comments to both your Head of Department and to the Student Engagement team. We take this issue very seriously. We work with key staff from across the University to address both offensive comments and unconscious bias.

Seeing the results

Unit convenors and the unit evaluation creator have automatic access to reports detailing the results of their unit evaluation. Full details about how to access the unit evaluation reports can be found on the Centre for Learning & Teaching wiki.

Completion rates are given per unit, showing the percentage of students registered on the unit who completed the evaluation. Results are automatically displayed as percentages, mode and median.

The Student Engagement team has worked with the Business Intelligence team in DDaT to create Power BI report on the University's Business Intelligence portal for colleagues (Dots, HoD, AD (E), Deans and the Faculty Student Experience / Engagement Mangers or equivalents to access their departments / School or Faculties data.

Feeding back to your students

Please ensure that unit evaluation reports are made available to your students. This enables students to find out about changes that have been made in response to their feedback. Unit convenors should upload their completed reports to the relevant Moodle page for their programme within eight weeks of the close of the unit evaluation survey.

How the University uses student feedback

Data from unit evaluations is collated and anonymised. Data is shared with Staff Student Liaison Committees (SSLCs), teaching staff, Directors of Studies, academic departments, the University's Education, Quality and Standards Commitee and other members of staff to help the University to continually develop and enhance learning and teaching, curricula and assessment.

Data from unit evaluations also helps to inform the Academic Staff Committee about probation and promotion of teaching staff.

Code of Practice

For further information about annual monitoring of units for all taught programmes of study, see the University's Code of Practice QA51.