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Student Course Surveys

Overview:

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Why we take an institute approach to Student Course Surveys

Student course surveys are a key component of our ongoing self-assessment and an enabler for us to improve our course and programme delivery. Through these surveys we apply the principle of Ngākau Māhaki, creating space for students to speak of their experiences and current needs in regard to our teaching and their learning, enabling us to better meet the needs of students.

Key Survey Dates

Student Course Surveys – Semester 2, 2025

(dates for ‘standard’ semester courses)
Monday 13 October Survey invitations emailed to students (open for weeks 11-13)
Sunday 2 November Surveys close for analysis
Monday 17 November Course reports available to teaching staff
Wednesday 26 November Power BI dashboard available

Administering the Student Course Surveys

A single generic link is used for teaching staff to distribute surveys to students. Staff must ensure that students are aware of and have access to:

www.unitec.ac.nz/ratemycourse

This link will take students to the RateMyCourse portal. When a student enters their student ID they will see the list of courses which have course surveys for them to complete. Once they finish a survey, that course will be removed from the list. Students use the same link to return to the portal.

The link does not change over time (it is the same every semester) and can be distributed to students via different channels (e.g. sent through Moodle, email, course material, website, etc.)

One email is sent directly to students at the start of the 3-week survey period (week 11 for standard semester courses) with their own personal link to their RateMyCourse portal (they don’t need to enter their student ID if they use the link in this email). This email is sent to students’ ‘preferred email address’ (i.e., the one saved in the student portal).

Teachers to allocate 15 minutes of class time

The survey period will run for three weeks (weeks 11-13). Because we don’t send multiple emails directly to students, we rely on teaching staff to be fully engaged in this process and to encourage their students to participate. Setting aside 15 minutes during class time for students to provide their feedback is recommended. Over a typical 16-week course, we feel asking a student to provide feedback for 15 minutes on that course is not too much to ask. Teaching staff should regard and prioritise this as an important stage of course delivery.

Results from Student Course Surveys

Individual course results are reported back to teachers via a Student Course Survey Report (pdf) for any course that receives at least 3 responses. APMs distribute these reports to their staff.

Teaching staff are required to share the outcomes with their students (either the current cohort or the next one) as described below. Class, course, programme and school level results are available to Head of Schools and academic leadership. Survey results and the actions from the results must be used to inform Course Evaluation and Planning (CEP) and Programme Evaluation and Planning (PEP).

Summarised institutional reporting is available via the interactive Power BI dashboard, ‘Student Course Surveys Dashboard’ which enables results to be filtered by school, programme, course, class, priority group and semester. The report is available to anyone with a Power BI licence. If you don’t have a license, please make a request to IT.

Individual course survey reports contain verbatim comments from students. The verbatim comments are removed prior to publishing the results to PowerBI.

Student Course Survey Power BI Dashboard

This dashboard provides results from all surveys from 2019 to date which can be filtered by school, programme, course, class, priority group and semester.

Telling students what we’re doing with the results – You Said, We Did initiative

Student Course Survey reports are often distributed to teaching staff too late to share with the cohort of students which responded to the survey. We close the loop by feeding back to the next student cohort and thereby demonstrate our commitment to acting on their views to continually improve.

Please note: Feedback sections on Moodle are currently being created. We expect this mahi to be completed prior to Semester 1, 2026.

Overview

Each Student Course Survey cycle is as follows:

  • Staff discuss the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response (the response to the previous semester’s student course survey results) with students (Week 1-2)
  • Student Course Surveys are made available to students via RateMyCourse (weeks 11-13)
  • Staff make time in class for students to complete surveys / post a reminder on Moodle AND remind students of the Themes and Responses (from the previous semester’s student cohort) (weeks 11-13)
  • Student Course Survey Reports distributed to staff (end of semester)
  • Staff consider the survey responses and develop the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response (end of semester)
  • Staff reflect on course delivery, including survey feedback from current semester and Themes and Responses from previous semester’s survey and report through the CEP
  • Staff upload the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response to the “Feedback” section on Moodle

No Course Survey Report?

If you do not receive a Student Course Survey report for your course, the most likely reason is that there were insufficient student responses to maintain confidentiality. If this is the case, you still need to complete the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response template. The Theme will be “Survey response rates too low for robust data” and the Response will be whatever the plan is to increase the response rates within your course.

Completing the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response (detailed instructions)
1.   Download the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response template from the link at the top of this page.
2.   Review the Student Course Survey report you have received from your APM. (Note: pages 2-3 of the report has the Instructions for implementing the You Said We Did initiative for Student Course Surveys – see below for a copy)

3.   Identify the three most common themes to emerge from the Student Course Survey for the course. These could be issues that need to be addressed, or positive features of a course that need to be maintained or perhaps given greater emphasis.

Consider any other feedback received from students when confirming the Themes

4.   In the tables in the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response template:

a. Provide up to three ‘Themes’ as indicated in the template.

b. Below each theme provide the ‘Response’ – how the theme has been addressed.

     Note: the tables are formatted to ensure they are easily copied into the CEP.

5.   Complete the rest of the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response template

6.   Save the document according to the file naming protocol – this allows easy and consistent identification by students

7.   Upload the completed Student Course Survey – Themes and Response to the Feedback section in Moodle, under the heading You Said, We Did.

8.   Make the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response available in Week 1 – 2 of the new course and:

a.   go through the Themes and Response with students in class

This ensures students are clear about what has been done in response to course feedback and will therefore see the value in completing course surveys. It will also give them an opportunity to ask any questions and for you to explore any additional matters with your students.

b.   remind students to consider the Themes and Response when they complete their course surveys later in the semester

9.   When completing the Course Evaluation and Planning (CEP) process, evaluate the effectiveness of the Response to the previous semester’s course survey

Themes:

  • Question 8: Consider the Themes and Response from the previous delivery and the current semester’s Survey results
    • How effective were the actions from the previous student feedback?
    • Has there been a change in the survey outcomes?
  • Question 9: Did you receive a Student Course Survey for this cohort? (Yes/No)
  • Question 9b: Paste a copy of this semester’s Themes and Response table below.

Use the Student Course Survey – Themes and Response document which has been/will be uploaded to the Moodle course Feedback Section.

File naming protocol:      

Schema: [SubjectcodeCoursecode]-[Semester] -[Year]-[ ContentIdentifier]-[ContentIdentifier]

Example: ACTY5505-S1-2025-SCS-Themes-and-Response

(SCS=Student Course Surveys)

Using the file naming protocol helps keep things consistent and easy for students to recognise across courses.

A summary of the above information is included in each Student Course Survey report provide to staff (pages 2-3).

Support

If you need support through this process, reach out to your Programme Coordinator, Academic Programme Managers, or similar, in the first instance.

  • For assistance with any of the items on this page contact your TKK Insights Team by email at tkkinsights@unitec.ac.nz.