October 2, 2015, by Ryan Neal
What do our students want?
Last November we told you all about Student Engagement within Project Transform. It is vital to us that we take on board students’ feedback about their University experience in order to ensure that our systems and processes reflect what our students want. This was of particular importance during our work surrounding Organisation Design and one of the methods we used to gather data about students’ views was to collaborate with the Students’ Union on their ‘How Did We Do?’ survey.
The survey consisted of two questions relating to Organisation Design, and we received 1,100 responses, with data being 95% representative of the student population. Assumptions are accurate to +/- 3%. The two questions, along with a breakdown of responses, can be found below. In these questions, students were given a number of statements and asked to rank them in order of importance.
| Question 1: Think about a time when you might need to apply for extenuating circumstances or have a general enquiry about your course. The following statements will describe some factors in the completion of that process – please rank them in order of importance for you. (1 = most important, 7 = least important) | Number of respondents who selected this option as priority 1 | |
| 1 | That the query is dealt with efficiently and the process is easy to understand and complete | 551 |
| 2 | That I speak directly to my Personal Tutor or other academic member of staff | 199 |
| 3 | That the person who deals with my query has excellent customer service skills | 85 |
| 4 | That I have the choice to do this online | 144 |
| 5 | That the office is located conveniently for me | 27 |
| 6 | That I recognise/know the person at the office that I go to | 59 |
| 7 | That I have the choice to do this over the telephone | 29 |
| Question 2: If you were to physically go to an office to apply for extenuating circumstances or make a general enquiry about your course, which of the below options would be most convenient to you? | Number of respondents who selected this option as priority 1 | |
| 1 | In the same building as my school/department | 679 |
| 2 | Close to the lecture theatres, seminar rooms or laboratories in which some of my teaching takes place | 126 |
| 3 | Anywhere on my home campus clearly visible and signposted | 225 |
| 4 | Close to a library I use frequently | 38 |
| 5 | Close to a catering outlet that I use frequently | 27 |
After completing question 1, respondents were invited to leave a free text comment to explain the thought behind their ranking. 914 of the respondents did so:
• 443 comments related to a need for efficiency
• 88 comments expressed a desire for Personal Tutors to be accessible
• 65 comments explicitly expressed support for an online system
Since the questions above make reference to extenuating circumstances, a control question (‘Have you ever applied for extenuating circumstances?’) was asked. 28% of respondents had applied for extenuating circumstances, but this did not affect the order of preference to either question. There was also no significant difference between undergraduate and postgraduate students.
From the above responses two key conclusions can be drawn:
• Most importantly, query management should follow an efficient and straight-forward process
• If a student were to visit an office, the primary importance in its location would be its proximity to their School/Department
These conclusions were used to inform the new organisation design model. In the new model, many of the core queries and processes can be dealt with online. However, there will also be a number of service centres that can deal with general enquiries, and these will be spread across each of the campuses in order to satisfy students’ wishes for a conveniently located service. Local, specified knowledge will remain in Schools so that students still have access to a local point of contact who can provide them with assistance to their queries. By following a set of standard processes across the University, students will be able to have their query dealt with efficiently, and will receive the same standard of service in any location.
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I have no idea who conducted this “survey”, but it is a shambles. To base a massive administrative change on 2 questions is utterly ridiculous, especially when you did not ask about those changes anyway! If you directly asked students if they would prefer school based or central based support offices, you would have no chance justifying Project ‘Save some money by laying off admin staff’ Transform. Even using the results from this awful survey, there is an vast number of students saying that their first priority is to have the support within the school building!!! So what have you decided to do? Move most of the support out of the school anyway. Why did you bother taking a survey? To tick a box? The underhand way that this has been conducted is utterly disgusting. At no stage was anyone explicitly informed of your intentions, and I imagine you made a conscious decision to avoid giving anyone full information. No student will agree to taking support out of schools, centralising it (I.e. Making it impersonal) giving fewer staff more work to do (which guarantees a reduction in quality of service). This Project to save money directly affect students negatively, students who now pay triple the fees that they used to, and are now seeing LESS for their investment. If you are going to start treating us like customers, you probably have the worst customer service of any company I have ever encountered.
Hi Samuel,
Thank you for your feedback.
The decision to implement the changes comprising Project Transform was taken due to a recognised need to improve the way that the entire University delivers administrative services, with regards to efficiency, consistency of service and accuracy of data. The survey was conducted in order to collect student feedback as to how services might be delivered once these changes are made, and to further inform us of student preferences for using these services.
Although some administrative support for students will be moved into service centres, some student support will also remain at a local level, and the University is currently working on the details for this. The University of Nottingham has no intention to mislead or keep information from its staff or students, but similarly it takes seriously the potential damage that could be caused by communicating details before they are confirmed.
We will be continuing to work with students throughout this process, ensuring that all students are informed at the appropriate times. The Students’ Union is also party to discussion and debate, and feeds into the project.
Thank you again for your feedback.
Ryan
In his comment, Samuel Gaughan makes reasonable points in clear, direct English. Unfortunately his substantial points are not directly answered in the response posted by Ryan Neal. Furthermore, the response, in contrast to Samuel’s comment, is written in a corporate language which – as we all know – can often result in circumlocution and evasion. (E.g. who exactly has “recognised” the “need” to improve the “consistency of service”, etc?)
1. Can Project Transform please provide – in clear, straightforward, direct English – a simple answer to the question of why, when the student survey (and, I would add, the staff survey too) overwhelmingly indicates a preference for the established system of local, personalised school-based support, the University instead chooses to embark on an untested system involving greater centralisation, which will offer less personal, less local support?
2. In what sense is student (and staff) input being used to “inform” Project Transform, if you do the opposite of what we all say we want?
My mobile phone company, through its network of call centres, provides highly consistent customer service, whereas the local traders in Beeston offer a wildly inconsistent service. However, the service from my mobile phone company is so consistently poor that I am counting down the days till next May when I can escape my contract, whereas I find myself increasingly using the local traders of Beeston, whose service is often excellent, far more personal, and more satisfying. Why are we moving from a model of “excellent and local” to a model of “consistent and more distant”?
3. If Project Transform really is convinced that this greater centralisation is a good idea, surely it should be promoting the general idea, if not the details, to the general student body right now?
It is worrying that the Project Transform response to Samuel’s comment mentions efficiency and consistency of service but not excellence of student support under the new system.
My last comment (on the staff survey) took 13 days to get a response (and I had to nag). A prompt response, in clear, direct English would be appreciated.