Module Feedback Policy

1.1 Purpose

1.1.1

The ethos of Student Feedback at Swansea University is core to the success of the institution in relation to the Academic Faculties and Professional Services and is a key commitment within the University’s Strategic Plan under Commitment 03: We will respect and value our students as partners.

1.1.2

The Student Engagement Strategy identifies module feedback’s role in student partnership and engagement and its key purpose as an enhancement tool. In particular the strategy refers to increasing engagement in module feedback for both staff and students:

Principle Two: Student Engagement and Staff Ownership

• Fully support the module feedback programme, ensuring students and staff engage with the process at the interim and end of module stages.

Principle Three: Student Engagement in Academic Quality Assurance and Enhancement

• Seek to increase engagement with Module Feedback, Student Surveys and other feedback and engagement opportunities, ensuring that they offer inclusive opportunities for all students to engage.

• Ensure students receive timely and appropriate feedback to responses given in both module feedback surveys, all surveys and feedback mechanisms such as Unitu.

1.1.3

The culture of partnership working with students is identified as a centenary commitment in the University’s Learning and Teaching Strategy 2019-2024 that states ‘we will continue to work with our students to provide them with the best experience, contributing to positive student outcomes’.

1.1.4

The UK Quality Code advice and guidance for student engagement states as an expectation for quality that ‘Students can provide feedback, work collaboratively with staff and other stakeholders as they consider feedback and other quality indicators and work as co-creators of the curriculum. These activities will contribute to effective course design and approval, periodic review and the recognition of high-quality teaching.’ This highlights the importance of student feedback and the students’ role in utilising this feedback as well as the role of staff as outlined in the advice and guidance for learning and teaching: ‘Student feedback is responded to and/or acted upon to enhance the quality of learning and teaching’.

1.1.5

The university provides 2 types of module feedback:

• End-of-module feedback: the purpose of this is to receive student feedback on the whole module and to highlight areas of good practice and areas for enhancement. This survey focuses on the student experience of the module.

• In-module feedback: the purpose of this is to receive student feedback during the module to allow for any enhancements to be put in place and to close the feedback loop with students in a timely manner. This survey focuses on assessing the understanding and learning of our students.

1.2 Scope

1.2.1

This policy relates to internally-run module feedback at Swansea University only. It does not apply to other University surveys including the National Student Survey (NSS) or Student Experience Surveys at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

1.2.2

This policy applies to all Swansea University undergraduate and postgraduate programmes which undertake module feedback.

1.3 Principles

1.3.1

Student feedback is vital in providing the University with first-hand information regarding the student experience, including both academic and extra-curricular based feedback from students. Student feedback is used for enhancement purposes at module, programme and Faculty level, as well as to enhance the provision and function of our Professional Services.

1.3.2

Swansea University has a commitment to encourage and engage with student feedback, therefore, it is anticipated that all modules across the University will undertake module feedback including both in-module and end-of-module feedback. Student Partnership & Engagement Services will work with and support Faculties to enable flexibility within module feedback to meet the needs of varying teaching patterns.

1.3.3

Student feedback responses in surveys and module feedback will remain anonymous and will comply with the University’s Student Privacy Statement in relation to data processing and handling.

1.3.4

Student feedback opportunities are provided at all levels of study, across all Faculties. Surveys remain a large part of the student feedback cycle at Swansea and enable students to provide feedback at all levels of study, including at module and programme level as well as in relation to Professional Services.

1.3.5

Students will be reminded to complete the survey using constructive language. The University Student Charter requires students to treat all members of the University community with courtesy and respect. Survey responses are anonymous - student names and numbers are not attached to the responses. However, if a student’s survey response is considered to fall short of these expected standards, anonymity will be removed from the survey response and appropriate action taken against that student.

1.3.6

Inappropriate content in module feedback should first be reported to the relevant School Education Lead, who will then approach the Module Feedback Team who can escalate the inappropriate content for action. Any further action will be decided by the Director of Academic Services based on the nature of the content.

1.3.7

Below is a table outlining centrally-run feedback opportunities for students at all levels of study:

1.4 Definitions

3.1 Preparation Phase

3.1.1

The Module Catalogue provides the data that informs which members of staff and students are linked to a specific module. This informs who receives the module feedback surveys, which members of staff are included in the lecturer-specific questions, and who receives the reports once a survey has closed.

3.1.2

It is the responsibility of the Faculty to keep the Module Catalogue up to date. If the module catalogue is incorrect, the wrong members of staff may be linked to a module feedback survey and reporting.

3.1.3

If a Faculty has not updated the relevant information in the Module Catalogue before a survey is opened and closed, the survey will NOT be rebuilt if incorrect.

3.1.4

If a module feedback report is sent to an incorrect individual, the Legal Team may be notified in the case of a data breach in line with the GDPR guidance.

3.1.5

The Module Feedback Team will contact each Faculty ahead of each cycle of module feedback to ensure they wish to run surveys in all of the provided modules and to remind the Faculties to update the Module Catalogue.

3.1.6

The Module Feedback Team do NOT have permission to update any information in the Module Catalogue.

3.1.7

It is advised by the Module Feedback Team that module coordinators arrange feedback sessions within their timetabled teaching sessions to encourage student engagement with module feedback. This can be supported with the use of EvaMetrics Engagement Portal which can provide live response rates and visuals to encourage student responses.

3.2 Survey Phase

3.2.1

End-of-module feedback is made up of 3 main sections: Core, Lecturer and Free Text. A full breakdown of the questions can be found in APPENDIX 1.

3.2.2

For the purposes of PDR, the following questions are used as metrics for KPI’s for the promotional process:

• KPI 01: Feedback on my work has helped to improve my learning

• KPI 02: Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the module

• KPI 03: Overall, I am satisfied with my experience of this lecturer’s teaching on the module

3.2.3

In-module feedback has a standard question set, which can be found in APPENDIX 2. Faculties can include bespoke question as agreed within the relevant Faculty or department.

3.2.4

All Faculties are reminded to keep surveys as short as possible to ensure student engagement is high throughout and the students are not over-surveyed. The maximum number of questions for in-module feedback is 7.

3.2.5

Module feedback surveys can be distributed to students in the following windows: TB1 TB2 In-module feedback Wks 4/5 Wks 4/5 End-of-module feedback Wk 9 onwards Wk 8/9 onwards.

3.2.6

Students can access all live module feedback surveys via the Virtual Learning Environment.

3.2.7

The EvaMetrics Engagement Portal can support staff in engaging their students in module feedback. The portal can be used to notify students via email that the survey is live. This email will only be sent to students who have NOT yet completed their module feedback survey and can be used numerous times to encourage engagement of nonrespondents.

3.2.8

The Module Feedback Team advise that shorter modules which do not run for the duration of a traditional teaching term, run only end-of-module feedback. This is due to the turnaround time required for staff to utilise the feedback and make changes within their modules.

3.2.9

The Module Feedback Team advise against module feedback surveys being open to cohorts of students whilst they are undertaking exams. This would otherwise put undue pressure on students during an already highly pressurised time in the academic year.

3.2.10

The institutional response rate target for both in-module and end-of-module feedback is 25%.

3.2.11

Response rates and results reports are available throughout the survey period via the EvaMetrics Engagement Portal. If you are unable to access the portal, please contact modulefeedback@swansea.ac.uk who will be able to provide you with the required information.

3.3 Analysis Phase

3.3.1

Results for both in-module and end-of-module feedback will be provided in PDF reports generated automatically within EvaSys.

3.3.2

Module Coordinators will able to access results reports throughout the survey period via the EvaMetrics Engagement Portal. These reports will also be in a PDF format.

3.3.3

These reports will be sent via email once a survey has closed, to the named lecturing staff on the module when the survey was built. The Module Coordinator will receive the reports of all lecturing staff on the module. Lecturers will receive only the data relating to themselves. Further information regarding access to data can be found in the Roles & Responsibilities table below.

3.3.4

There is no publication threshold on student responses and therefore you will receive all quantitative and qualitative data.

3.3.5

Free text comments are not redacted by the Module Feedback Team and therefore must be handled carefully by the Faculties to avoid sharing the comments or compromising student anonymity.

3.4 Calculations

3.4.1

All quantitative data is rounded up to one decimal place.

3.4.2

The Core question results are provided as an average across all responses for that module.

3.4.3

The Lecturer question results are provided as an average across all responses for that particular member of staff.

3.4.4

The Free Text responses will be provided to Module Coordinators in full.

3.4.5

A full breakdown of the calculations for Module Feedback reports can be found in APPENDIX 3.

3.5 Communications Phase

3.5.1

A communications plan for module feedback has been developed and can be found in APPENDIX 4.

3.5.2

Outcomes of module feedback should be shared with students by Faculties in order to close the feedback loop. This should include responses to any feedback which has resulted in an action, including any actions or requests raised by students which cannot be fulfilled.

3.5.3

Staff can close the feedback loop with their students via the EvaMetrics Engagement Portal. The Portal has a built-in reflective tool which provides staff with prompting questions which can be sent via email back to all students within a module cohort.

3.5.4

The EvaMetrics Engagement Portal also provides a tool for providing reflections on the student feedback to the rest of the module teaching team, outlining actions and reflections again using a set of prompting questions.

3.5.5

The use and distribution of student feedback data is restricted to internal enhancement purposes within the university. The module feedback data is shared with Academic Quality Services for use within the module review process. The data is also shared with Human Resources and Management Information Systems for use within the PDR process. For more information on the inclusion of module feedback data within the PDR process, please see the Your Data Definitions guidance provided by Human Resources.

3.5.6

Module feedback quantitative data and trends can be used for external purposes, if stated as an internal data source. Free text comments cannot be used as direct quotes for external purposes, only provided as a summary of student feedback.

3.5.7

If there are errors in PDR data in relation to Module Feedback, staff will need to contact modulefeedback@swansea.ac.uk with details of the module feedback. Please note, module feedback data can only be amended for the last academic year.

PLEASE NOTE: no raw data will be provided to ANY staff in the University except to MIS for PDR purposes.

End-of-Module Feedback Questions

In-Module Feedback Questions