National Student Survey (NSS)

Academic Support contact for initial enquiries - Rob Traynor

The National Student Survey, which all UK final year undergraduate students are invited to participate in, has been run annually since 2005. Universities are required to participate in the Survey as part of the Teaching Quality Information arrangements with the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). The NSS is managed on behalf of HEFCE by IPSOS MORI, an independent survey research agency, which runs the NSS during the second term each year. Students are asked to complete the NSS questionnaire on-line and may be contacted by telephone and by post.

Academic Support officers are the main UCL contacts for the NSS and co-ordinate the arrangements for the survey. This includes responsibility for:

  • co-ordination of the student data required by HEFCE for the NSS (with data supplied by Student Data Services, UCL Registry and Academic Services);
  • distribution of publicity to UCL academic departments and units, Corporate Support Services and UCL Union as appropriate;
  • co-ordination of the NSS Liaison Officers (NSSLO) network which promote the survey within UCL academic departments and units;
  • monitoring of the response rates in order to inform NSSLOs, departments and academic units of progress;
  • analysis of the NSS data and production of the results digests for dissemination to the faculties.

NSS data is received and considered by Academic Board, Academic Committee and the Joint Staff Student Committee (JSSC) also receives the overall data, alongside other sources of student feedback data. The JSSC prodcues an overview of student feedback on their experience whilst stufying at UCL, which is summarised in an annual report to Academic Committee. The NSS data also forms part of the Key Performance Indicators reported annually to Council.

NSS results form part of HEFCE’s Key Information Set (KIS), alongside programme data, information on employment destinations and average accommodation and fees. This information appears in university prospectus pages, as well as the Unistats website.

For more information, please see “How the NSS works”.

The NSS results* at institutional and faculty-level, can be found using the links below and are available to UCL staff and students only:

NSS data is considered widely within UCL and Faculty Results Digests are given to faculties for consideration at the Faculty Teaching Committee and wider dissemination to departments, other academic units and programmes as appropriate.

*HEFCE has released this data and the student comments on the understanding that they are being made available solely for internal purposes, such as to inform quality management and enhancement and that institutions will not actively disseminate the additional data to third parties, for example in publicity or marketing materials.

Page last modified on 19 feb 13 16:04