FAQ's

Following a university-wide consultation during 2019, there was agreement that the current student feedback system should be changed to reflect the need to increase student response rates, close the feedback loop to students and to allow faculty to have their individual teaching captured for the purposes of their development and the promotion system.  Changes to the current questionnaire were also recommended. 

The purpose of this development is to provide a new system with the appropriate functionality to enable the feedback loop to students to be closed and to allow schools to gain deeper insights into their students’ perceptions of their learning while providing a reliable, secure and fit for purpose student feedback system at an enterprise level.

The current student feedback process involves a survey of modules that takes place at the end of module delivery. All eligible modules are included in this survey which operates through Infohub. The module survey asks a number of core, optional and ad-hoc questions about the student experience of the module.

The new student feedback process will see the retirement of the current survey and system. This will be replaced by two new surveys:

• Module feedback survey: students give feedback on their experience of the module
• Lecturer teaching survey: students give feedback on their teacher

A new system will be procured to operate the surveys.

A Steering Group with broad university representation has been convened, along with a Project Team who will oversee the implementation of the project plan. The project team will report directly into the Student Feedback Steering Group, who are responsible for the overall governance and the successful delivery of the project. 

Academic Lead: Prof Marie Clarke, Dean of Undergraduate Studies

Business Owner: Maura McGinn, Director of UCD Institutional Research

Project Manager: Ryan Teevan, Project Manager, UCD IT Services

• Following the university-wide consultation, two new student feedback surveys have been developed – a Module Feedback survey and a Lecturer Teaching Survey.
• To implement the recommendations of the consultation and deliver a new student feedback system for UCD, a Steering Group and Project Team were established.
• A tender process was conducted in late 2022 to procure a new system to operate the two new surveys. The tender was awarded to Evasys, a market-leader in the provision of evaluation software and the provider of such systems to many higher-education institutions in the UK and Ireland.
• A pilot to test the new system began in the Spring trimester 2022/23 with 7 UCD schools
• This pilot was reviewed in the summer of 2022/23
• A review report was submitted to the University Management Team who approved a full rollout of the system beginning Spring trimester 2023/24

The pilot to test the new system and surveys took place in trimester 2 2022/23 (April/May 2023)

The following UCD schools participated in the pilot:

• UCD College of Business
• UCD School of Psychology
• UCD School of Law
• UCD School of Physics
• UCD School of Veterinary Medicine
• UCD School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore
• UCD School of Civil Engineering
  
  

The surveys will be run through Brightspace using the evaluation solution software provided by evasys. Faculty, staff and students will access their surveys through Brightspace.

All relevant modules will automatically be included in the Module Feedback Survey - subject to the criteria that has been in place in the Infohub system

The same criteria will be applied to the modules available for Lecturers to select to be put forward for the Lecturer Teaching Survey.

The new surveys will be confidential but not fully anonymous. A small number of super-user administrators will have access to all aspects of the system, including student feedback, in order to deal with inappropriate/inoffensive comments or behaviour (as set out in the UCD Student Code), or to invoke UCD’s duty of care to the community where threat or risk is detected. 

Please note that access to this level of information will only occur in instances where the feedback is deemed to have breached University policy or there is a concern for students safety. 

Teaching staff decide individually which module they would like to put forward for their own teaching evaluation. 

The new survey system has the functionality to identify and remove offensive words. In addition, comprehensive guidelines for students on leaving constructive and respectful feedback and awareness of unconscious bias are included at the start of each survey. Should you receive a comment that you deem offensive, please contact UCD Institutional Research ((opens in a new window)institutional.research@ucd.ie) for information on the policy on Inappropriate Student Feedback.

The new survey process and system have the functionality for module coordinators and lecturers to ‘close the feedback loop’ with students. This means that a response can be provided to students on the feedback they have given through the module feedback and lecturer teaching surveys. This could include thanking students for taking the time to leave feedback, advising on changes that may be implemented based on their feedback etc. When the teaching and module feedback surveys close, module coordinators and lecturers will receive a prompt from the system that they can enter the communication that they would like students to receive in response to the feedback left.

Module Feedback Survey: 

• Access to module-level results:

  • Module Coordinators will have access to response rates, core quantitative questions, open text (qualitative questions), optional questions, response provided to students and text box where faculty have provided context

• School-level results:
  • Head of School and/or nominee will have access to the following elements of the survey; response rates, core quantitative questions (quantitative questions), response provided to students and text box where faculty have provided context.
  • VPTL at College level access to core questions results excluding open-ended questions.
  • If the Faculty Promotions Committee is granted access to feedback results by the Faculty member, the Committee at time of application for promotion will have access to core quantitative questions
  • UCD Institutional Research has access to / processes results for the survey data and can produce analysis at university-level

Lecturer Teaching Survey

• Access to module-level results:
   
  • Lecturers will have access to response rates, core quantitative questions, open text (qualitative questions), optional questions, response provided to students and text box where faculty have provided context

• School-level results:
  • Head of School and/or nominee will have access to the following elements of the survey; response rates, core quantitative questions (quantitative questions), response provided to students and text box where faculty have provided context.
  • VPTL at College level access to core questions results excluding open-ended questions.
  • If the Faculty Promotions Committee is granted access to feedback results by the Faculty member, the Committee at time of application for promotion will have access to core quantitative questions
  • UCD Institutional Research has access to / processes results for the survey data and can produce analysis at university-level

The new feedback system facilitates module coordinators and lecturers providing context – for viewing by Head of School/Faculty Promotions Committee, etc. – on feedback left by students.

It is envisaged that the facility to ‘close the feedback loop’ with students will encourage students to engage with the system. The system also allows for a greater variety of communication and promotion options, including QR code and live response rate tracking. Finally, as the new survey system will be hosted in Brightspace it will be easier for students to access surveys and they will be more visible to them.

During the full system rollout, the Project team will be offering the following guidance and support - please check the website regularly for links to resources:

- training; a series of training videos and guides will be made available to all

- promotion: a suite of resources for promoting the surveys with students is also available

- support: the Project Team will be available to meet on a daily basis through a series of drop-in sessions during the survey setup period. They can be contacted at any time by email at (opens in a new window)studentfeedback@ucd.ie 

No, only the Module Coordinator or Lecture/Co Lecture or Module Assistance roles as defined by the Module Access Management System (MAMS), can put themselves forward for inclusion in the teaching survey.

The Student Feedback Team will be available to provide support and answer any queries you may have. Their details, and all information about the project, is available on our dedicated website:

https://www.ucd.ie/studentfeedback/