University of Oxford, UK: Fighting Survey fatigue and reporting to engage

Jonathan Gordon, Student Information Manager at the University of Oxford shares insight into how he uses the Student Barometer(SB) to manage student feedback across the university.

Previous Challenges

• Producing data in a digestible format suitable for all of the different stakeholders needs
• Before using the Barometer data there was no simple way to provide meaningful data on each course at the university

Using the Barometer data
Jonathan plays a key role at the University of Oxford in ensuring stakeholders feel confident in presenting the Barometer data: “We’ve got one university, 38 colleges, four divisions, a number of faculties who sit within the divisions and a huge number of courses. All these people have, at some level, an interest in the Barometer data and it’s my job to make sure they all get what they need from that and that they can access it in a way that makes most sense to them.”

Jonathan explains the Barometer data has been used to implement positive change. “By being able to take apart the data and show the courses that need particular attention, we’ve been able to share best practice. We were able to put in place a committee policy change which has led to rises in student satisfaction with marking feedback.”

The Barometer data is used to help colleges and departments share best practices and to target resources to make effective changes. It also helps to tease out the complexities of Oxford for outside audiences, by giving prospective students an insight into the potential differences between colleges for example.   

The student papers also run reports on the Barometer which helps to increase understanding of the importance of the survey amongst students and show them how their feedback has been used to make policy changes.

 “We really benefit from the Barometer. When you have a hyper-complex organisation like Oxford, you need one survey tool that can satisfy multiple stakeholder needs. The Barometer does it and it does it brilliantly… we can find meaningful data at almost every level of the university.”