The University of Southampton is committed to improving the student experience and quality of education of all students. The University will work with the University of Southampton Students’ Union (SUSU) as part of its quality monitoring and enhancement framework, working with them to draw upon the views of students across campuses, modes of study and programmes.

Student Representatives

Student representatives take part in our governance structure, take an active part in formulating policies, are given many opportunities to feed back their thoughts, views, and concerns throughout their time at University. The University works closely with the Students' Union to ensure students are represented and have opportunities to engage.

Student Feedback

The University of Southampton is committed to receiving and responding to student feedback in order to monitor and enhance the quality of the student learning experience.  The feedback that students give us, via a range of different methods, goes directly to helping us make the changes that students want to see.

Working as Partners

The Partnership requires both groups bearing equal responsibility for the continuous improvement of the educational experience.

This partnership can be ensured by:

• Working openly with all members of the University community in improving the quality of teaching and learning at Southampton, not only in the identification of issues but also the co-creation of solutions.
• Proactively engaging with both formal and informal points of staff/student engagement, including Staff-Student Liaison Committees and Forums.
• Sharing information and knowledge to help support ongoing improvement activities, including any information collected as part of the "Evaluating what we do" section below.
• Communicating when changes have been made and working together to measure the impact and benefit of these to the wider University community

Student Voice

We can help develop this student voice at Southampton by:

• Recognising the SUSU Academic Rep structure as the formal representative body of all students, and ensuring that staff (through support offered by the Centre for Higher Education Practice) have the skills to best interact with them.
• Acknowledging the need to directly engage with the student body to supplement formal representative structures, with a particular emphasis on groups who are often unengaged in improving their own academic experience.
• Promoting opportunities for engagement in quality assurance and enhancement activity, ensuring that they are accessible and open to all.
• Embedding the student voice within key points in the student lifecycle, including the development, creation and review of University programmes and modules.
• Supporting the attendance of student representatives at key University decision-making bodies and working groups, allowing them to meaningfully engage in shaping the strategy and direction of the institution.
• Recognising the work of those who engage with the student voice through events including the SUSU Academic Awards and the University Vice-Chancellor’s Awards.

Student Voice Toolkit (opens internal site)

Evaluating what we do

We will evaluate the success of our work through:

• The use of student surveying and feedback collection on a local level to ensure the quality of individual modules and programmes of study.
• The promotion of opportunities at regular intervals for institution-wide surveying including as part of the National Student Survey and Southampton Student Survey, and the comparison of our findings to other comparator institutions.
• The comparison of our activity against the benchmarks and expectations set by sector bodies such as the Office for Students and the Quality Assurance Agency, and by sharing best practice with other institutions.

Ongoing Support

The success of student engagement in quality relies on the ongoing support of all members of the University community.  As such we commit to the following to help support the ongoing success of student engagement in quality at Southampton:

• Official recognition of the SUSU Academic Rep structure, as enshrined in the University’s Academic Student Representation Policy.
• Support for SUSU in the annual training of their Academic Reps.
• Providing Administrative support for various formal staff/student meetings
• Promoting joint successes and achievements through University and SUSU channels in order to "close the feedback loop".
• Exploring other means of formally recognising the skills development and contributions of student representatives.

Useful documents

Academic Student Representation Policy

Terms of Reference for Student-Staff Liaison Committee - taught programmes

Terms of Reference for Student-Staff Liason Committee - research programmes