Student Forums provide an opportunity for students to engage directly with senior university leaders on issues that are important to their university experience.
The last Student Forum was held in February and since then, Nicky Passmore, Executive Director of Student Experience, has been working with University staff and Union Southampton to see how we can act upon the ideas you put forward.
The theme for February’s forum was assessment and feedback. However, students asked a variety of questions relating to their university experience.
Some of the great progress that has been made following the forum has been outlined below:
- You said: How does the University ensure consistency across its feedback?
- We did: We train all new staff on best practice when it comes to giving feedback which sets an institutional expectation. All summative assessments are moderated, and this process checks to ensure the marks awarded are reasonable, and that the standard of feedback is as expected. In order to support this, a large amount of our staff are external examiners and this provides opportunities to see the quality of feedback given to students studying elsewhere.
- You said: We’re interested in the work that is being done to ensure that the University’s commitments to provide students with feedback in a timely manner are being met.
- We did: Assessment and feedback is one of the seven themes that the University is focusing on in our education strategy. We have reiterated the importance of faculties taking action to ensure feedback is returned in the time frame outlined in the University policy, which is within four weeks. If you have had to wait longer than you would expect to for feedback, please raise this with your course representative who will bring it up in the Student Staff Liaison Committees. Find out who your course representative is by clicking here.
- You said: Would the University be willing to consider moving Semester one exams to better accommodate student needs?
- Union Southampton President, Alex Hovden, is taking actions forward on this. He is producing a report which will be presented at the end of March with the results from a student survey and University consultation. Early assessment of these results is as follows:
• 63% of students expressed that they did not feel that they had enough time between the end of exams/assignment hand ins and the beginning of Semester 2.
• 70% of students said that they perceived there to be no disadvantages to having more time between the end of exams/assignments hand ins and the beginning of Semester 2.
• Only 13% of students would make no changes to the academic calendar, with 57% being willing to accept a shorter summer holiday, and 30% being willing to accept a shorter Easter holiday.
You can view a full list of ideas and responses from the student forum here.
Your student voice is really important to the University – ideas or suggestions can’t always be acted upon, but will be wherever possible. If it isn’t possible, someone from the University will always try and explain why.
Helpful links:
- Union Southampton’s ‘You Make Change’
- List of course representatives
- National Student Survey
- You Said, We Did website
