Your feedback

All students enrolled on a programme unit at BU have the opportunity to participate anonymously in BU’s My Unit Feedback survey. This survey takes place twice during the academic year, once in each semester, usually towards the end of the teaching period.   

This survey asks you to reflect on your experience of the unit, in particular the learning you’ve gained from it, your engagement with the unit materials and the support and feedback you received from unit staff. The survey is hosted in Brightspace and your teaching staff will prompt you to complete the anonymised survey at the relevant time. 

We use the feedback from the surveys to enhance our understanding of your learning experience and to improve this for you and for future students at BU. 

The My Unit Feedback survey (run for the first time in 2022) replaced the Mid-Unit Student Evaluation (MUSE) survey that some students will be familiar with from earlier years at BU. 

As well as understanding your learning experience on individual units, it’s very important for us to get your feedback on your wider course experience and how you are supported with your studies throughout your whole time at BU. 

All students enrolled on an undergraduate programme at levels four, five and six have the opportunity to participate anonymously in BU’s My Course Feedback survey. This survey takes place once in each academic year. It asks you about your experience across the whole of your programme, how your programme is managed, and about some aspects of your wider BU experience. This is different from My Unit Feedback which asks questions about your learning on individual units. The survey contains some questions which are the same for students at all levels and some questions which are about experiences specific to students at a particular level, e.g. arrival and induction for level four students. The survey takes place in the first semester for level six students (to avoid a clash with the National Student Survey and ensure we are able to respond to your feedback before the end of your course) and in the spring for levels four and five students.

The survey is hosted in Brightspace and your teaching staff will prompt you to complete the survey at the relevant time. 

We use the feedback from the surveys to enhance our understanding of your experience at BU and to improve our programme delivery and associated processes for you and for future students at BU. The results also help us understand where we may need to change or improve our communications with you.

The NSS is a nationwide, online survey for final year undergraduate students (level six), and all UK universities are required to offer the opportunity to take part to students. Participating in the NSS is a great opportunity to reflect honestly on your whole BU experience. We use your feedback to compile year-on-year comparative data and to identify areas for improvement, as well as those of strength to share best practice. Results are also publicly available in the form of Unistats data, used by prospective students, their families and advisers to help make informed choices of where and what to study.

The PTES helps BU to gather important information about the experiences of our postgraduate taught (PGT) students on Master’s courses (level seven). The survey is also carried out by other universities across the UK, which means we can compare how we are doing with other institutions. PTES covers students’ experiences in the key areas of teaching and learning, engagement, assessment and feedback, organisation and management, and skills development.

The PRES is an opportunity for all postgraduate research (PGR) students to share your BU experiences. You can feedback to us about your supervision, the research environment at BU, assessments, resources, skills, and your development as a researcher. The feedback will be used to inform BU-wide enhancements to the PGR experience and inform faculty-level improvements to the research environment and support for PGRs. It will also help us to benchmark our performance against other higher education institutes to identify key areas for development, as the survey is also carried out by other universities across the UK. 

The Graduate Outcomes Survey is a national survey to understand where graduates’ degrees have led them. It captures the work, further study and perspectives of graduates and your feedback helps us to know how we are equipping our graduates for employment. It also helps future students to make an informed choice about their university and course.

• Student Representatives (Reps) are elected by their fellow students and work in partnership with the university to make the student experience better for all students. Student Reps help to co-ordinate the student feedback from your academic programme, department and faculty.
• There are different levels of Student Reps for programmes, departments and the faculties. Additionally, BU Postgraduate Research Reps represent the view of postgraduate research students.
• Student Reps represent the student voice in forums and formal committees at different levels of university governance, including programme management teams, department committees, Faculty Academic Standards Committees (FASECs) and the university’s Student Voice and Engagement Committee (SVEC).
• Student Reps use the SimOn feedback tool provided by SUBU to record comments they receive from students.
• Student Reps are trained by SUBU when they are elected and are given all the tools necessary to become effective in their role, including how to use the SimOn feedback tool. SUBU also gives ongoing support to Student Reps to promote student voices and the communication between staff, students and other stakeholders.
• To encourage and recognise students as partners at the very core of the university system, Student Rep feedback is encouraged throughout all of BU’s quality assurance and enhancement activities, including committee representation at all levels, programme approval and review, internal review and audit mechanisms. Find out more on the SUBU website.

Student Staff Forums (SSF) are an important way in which your student voices are represented, discussed and actioned in relation to day to day issues at your programme level. SSFs are a collaborative partnership between a programme team and their elected Student Representatives. They discuss student feedback and the student experience, including feedback from BU student surveys and other views expressed by students. The SSF provides a framework for discussing how problems may be resolved, explaining the reasons for decisions or practices and identifying and supporting good practice. SSFs offer an important space for consulting with Student Representatives, discussing potential enhancements and improvements, facilitating and evaluating the impact of actions, and communicating outcomes with you.

If issues are raised at an SSF which cannot be fully discussed and resolved at an SSF (e.g. because they require actions which cannot be authorised by the programme team itself), these issues can be referred to the appropriate level within BU’s governance structure. Depending on the issue in question and the committee’s remit, this might include departmental committees, Faculty Academic Standards Committees (FASEC) and ultimately, the university’s Academic Standards and Education Committee (ASEC) and the Student Voice and Engagement Committee (SVEC).

The Student Voice and Engagement Committee provides strategic leadership on behalf of the University Leadership Team for student engagement and student voice across BU. Its role is to ensure a consistent and coordinated approach, oversee the effectiveness of feedback mechanisms and provide assurance about actions and responses. It is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor and members include senior leaders from across BU, as well as representatives from SUBU. There are eight student members, two from each faculty. If you are interested in being a member of this committee in future, please contact [email protected].

The Vice-Chancellor's Student Strategic Insights and Opportunities Network (ViS²ION) is a large focus group of student panellists from across BU. The ViS²ION panel work in partnership with BU to inform strategic developments and the future direction of the university.   

Participating in ViS²ION enables you to:

• Network with academic and service leaders from across BU, including the Vice-Chancellor and his leadership team
• Take part in interactive sessions with BU staff looking at topics that affect current and future students
• Understand BU’s strategy and how it is being implemented
• Gain valuable experience, meet amazing people and develop your skills.

ViS²ION panellists are not recruited to represent the student body, but rather to give their own personal, reflective, honest views on topics presented. Find out more about the ViS²ION network and register your interest in participating on the BU website.

SUBU exists for our members – students at BU – and so we do all we can to make sure your student voices drive our work. Our work includes representing your academic and overall student experience in order to drive change or keep what’s working well, both in SUBU and BU.  

To help make sure Student Voices drive SUBU’s work, we collect student feedback through:

• SimOn, the online feedback tool used by Student Reps. This feedback is then collated and reviewed by SUBU’s officers and student voice meetings. This enables SUBU to identify the larger-scale issues which it needs to work on for students, to inform the development of the services and opportunities offered by SUBU and also to highlight the aspects that are working well for students. 
• Speak Week events
• SUBU’s student surveys, for example, How’s SUBU for You?
• Your Ideas platform, where students can suggest ideas for debate at SUBU Summit 

Work with students who are democratically elected by you to represent you: 

• Student Reps, Department Reps and Faculty Reps
• Full Time Elected Officers
• Liberation Campaign Officers
• Executive Committee

Provide democratic forums so that students can drive SUBU’s work:

• SUBU Summit
• Student Members’ Meeting
• Executive Committee

Have student members on our Trustee Board, highest level of governance.

Report back to students on our progress and respond to feedback regularly:

• SUBU’s progress on our work for students
• Reports from our Student Members’ Meeting
• Reports from SUBU Summit

Our approach to student feedback at BU is based on the Quality Assurance Agency’s best practice guidance. It recognises that staff and students should work as partners and that BU should set mutual goals and outcomes with SUBU (page four of best practice guidance):

Partnership working is a key concept for student engagement in higher education - students and staff fulfil mutually important roles in shaping the student experience that enables staff and students to recognise and value the impact of student engagement in enhancement and quality assurance.

By fostering a culture of mutual respect, openness and sharing of information, providers can benefit from the insights, views and effective engagement of students. Where they exist, providers work with their students’ representative body (such as students’ union/association/guild) to set mutual goals and desired outcomes from student engagement activity at a strategic level, to orientate students and staff towards a shared understanding of success. 

This best practice frames our joint approach to your feedback.

• Student Reps voices – SimOn feedback used in programme review etc activities
• Students asked to contribute to the programme review etc events
• Student as full panel members, trained and paid just like other members. This approach is a partnership between SUBU and BU - Student Advisers for Programme Review Panels.
• Ad-hoc feedback from students on initiatives, projects and policy through engagement with professional service teams and academic departments. No matter where you have shared feedback (via your Student Rep, at a Student Shout / Big Meeting, or via your Student-Staff Forum) students’ feedback is central to collaboratively developing our community. For example, students have been actively involved in developing the university’s policy on student feedback and engagement, requesting more buses, improving the IT services website, extending opening hours of the library, providing more study spaces on campus, developing anonymous marking, replacing MyBU with Brightspace … and more.