Unit Surveys
Student feedback is an essential source of information for course instructors and programme teams alongside School and Faculty colleagues. Each semester TPE deliver an institution wide end-of-semester survey project for taught programme course units identified by the schools. The surveys provide opportunity for share feedback and give our staff a better understanding of the thoughts and experiences of our students.
Blue by Explorance | Recent changes to Course Unit Surveys
Given the recent changes to both our tool and approach to surveying at Manchester, The Taught Programme Enhancement team have worked to produce the following information to support your understanding of our current processes for unit surveys. Included is guidance on surveying for semester 2 23/24, how this will be delivered and how you can support increased engagement and response rates in light of a technical problem with blackboard integration.
You can promote the survey (and how to access it) to student via this slide - How to access surveys via your email.pptx
A brief review of survey delivery for Course Unit Surveys
Over the last two years Manchester has transitioned to a new software for survey delivery, Blue by Explorance. As our previous tool (Ekit) was reaching the end of its current contract, a review was undertaken to identify alternatives within the market. Blue is more flexible than our previous tool and has increased capacity for integration with our current and incoming systems. The product was selected with future aims to facilitate creation of surveys specific to the needs of local areas in addition to satisfying institution-wide surveying needs.
As of 2023/2024 all standard end of semester unit surveys are being delivered via Blue, using the data validated by school colleagues. As we gain further experience of the system TPE will be working to introduce further development and advances to our surveying activity. Priority areas will be identified in collaboration with the Student Surveys Working Group. At present improvement to the quality of our data, and the simplicity of how this is manipulated for the survey project are a key focus.
How can the new survey tool be used in the future?
There is the ability to introduce student demographic data to produce more insightful reporting, with an aim to support colleagues in making more informed judgements about the quality of our provision. Logistically there is the potential to overhaul our data collection and validation process, using features of Blueand moving away from spreadsheet and email-based activity. The intended reduction to required buy-in time for data collation would afford both more resourcefor varied and additionalsurveying projects andincreased reporting and comment analysis activity. To this effect MLY, a machine-learning comment analysis tool has also been acquired from Explorance and will be used in conjunction with Blue.
What is the timeline for the semester 2 survey release?
For Semester 2 2023-2024 surveys will release to students on Monday 8th April, and will close to feedback at 11:59pm Sunday 5th May. Emails will begin to release to students from 8am but given the number of students the system is being prompted to contact; they may not receive their email until late afternoon.
If a student is having issues accessing the survey via their email, please contact/direct the student to teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk
How is the survey distributed?
Survey links will be distributed to students via their University of Manchester email, which will contain a link unique to each student. This link will direct them to a table of all the survey tasks they have been assigned as part of the semester 2 project.
Unfortunately, due to a removal of support for a specific functionality by Blackboard, we have lost the ability to direct students to links within the VLE for Semester 2. TPE are working to reintroduce this functionality ASAP. We are also assessing additional functionality to provide more options for students to access their surveys and thank colleagues for their patience as this work is progressed.
Therefore, for the semester 2 project it is vital we ask all colleagues to direct students to the emails they will receive from teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk. Throughout the 4-week survey window students will receive a number of links, should they misplace any of the ones they have already received. Please encourage students to search for the above email address in their inbox, or search for terms such as ‘unit surveys’ or ‘semester 2 survey’.
The release schedule for emails to students during the survey period is as follows. (It should be noted that once a student completes all assigned surveys, they will not receive any additional planned emails from the project).
| 08/04/2024 | Surveys release to students from teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk. This will be sent to their Manchester student email address. |
| 15/04/2024 | Students receive first email reminder. Where all assigned surveys have been completed, prompt emails will cease to deliver to the student |
| 18/04/2024 | Students receive second email reminder |
| 22/04/2024 | Students receive third email reminder |
| 25/04/2024 | Students receive fourth email reminder |
| 29/04/2024 | Students receive fifth and final email reminder |
| 05/05/2024 | Survey closes for student responses at 11:59pm |
How do students complete the survey?
Once students receive their invitation email, they simply click the enclosed link and are taken to a browser window containing a list of all survey tasks they have been assigned. In whatever order the student chooses they can select and work through their surveys. The surveys contain a combination of scale questions and free-text comments. All scale questions are set as mandatory, but comment questions are optional. (We have a number of students who are not aware they can leave the comment boxes blank and opt to hit random letters on the keyboard as they believe they cannot submit their response otherwise).
Once they have answered all questions they can hit submit and their response will be logged as part of the project. The system will then return the student to their list of tasks and they can select the next uncompleted survey to work through.
If a student is having issues accessing the survey via their email, please contact/direct the student to teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk
When will I receive my feedback and what should I do when this happens?
Following closure of the survey window individual instructor reporting will release to colleagues Tuesday 7th May at 8am (again, you may not receive emails until later in the day). At this stage no aggregate reporting will be released, nor will anyone other than the named instructor on the report receive a copy. This is not your final report, and should not be treated as such - the email will provide more information and instructions regarding this.
This will allow for a period of redaction activity to take place prior to wider release, where instructors feel this is necessary. Colleagues will have until the end of Friday 10th May to follow the process outlined in the email they receive with the report to request that redaction is considered.
If a colleague with access to the same responses as yourself as part of their report requests a redaction which is approved, you will recieve an updated copy of your report with information about this taking place via email.
What is the redaction consideration process?
A panel will consider all requests provided by the end of Friday 10th May.
Where recaction is approved, the colleague will be contacted by TPE on Tuesday 14th May with a new copy of their report where the agreed comments will have been redacted.
The instructor will have until EOD Wednesday 15th May to confirm with TPE that redaction was successful.
If the panel does not approve the request for redaction colleagues will recieve an email explaining this outcome.
Following this activity aggregate reporting will release on Monday 20th May, alongside collated copies of instructor reports to the relevant members of schools and faculties. Only at this stage should colleagues consider all reporting, including instructor reports as final and official reporting.
Further Information
For any further information or questions which this page has not answered please contact teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk
For any requests for surveys to be delivered via Blue please contact daniel.bayes@manchester.ac.uk
If you are an instructor and have been attributed to/missed from a unit survey incorrectly please contact teachingandlearningsurveys@manchester.ac.uk and provide as much information as possible. This will help the team to resolve your issue quickly. At a minimum please provide your full name, the relevant course unit code(s) and the relevant course unit title(s).
If there is any further information you think is key to your request, please also include this.