These are the comments made by students in response to our recent survey in term 1

1. Hi there! These are the comments people wrote at our last survey in Term 1 about the current Feedback System. They were very helpful in designing the new system! Take a read!

2. “I heard that the feedback received after examinations is really poor. I hope you guys can do something about that.”

3. “I didnt know a feed back system even existed. I was hoping that this form wouldnt have been for feedback purposes regarding the feedback system. i hoped it would have been a medium to provide feedback and air opinion.”

4. “It's surprisingly good, I have nothing to add.”

5. “it shouldnt be too long, and it sould also be somehow interesting and interpreted in a funnier way so the students wont get annoyed when filling it in:)”

6. “I would suggest to give a choice to make short feedback and add an option for those, who want to leave a more extensive feedback with additional comments. The current one takes too much time and sometimes does not give a choice to give the comment we really want to.”

7. “Some feedback questions seem repetitive.”

8. “The current system is very long-winded, particularly the criteria of the lecturers and the lecturing content. The system would benefit more if the criteria were more concise. Also, I think students would greatly benefit from seeing other students feedbacks on a certain module or lecturer (e.g. lecturer rankings from students). As a student at WBS I find it very difficult to gauge what a module is about or how good a lecturer is, and finding past students who have taken the module is not always easy.”

9. “A student-based feedback site where we can see students rankings of both the module, and the lecturer would be very beneficial.”

10. “I would like to see the SSLC present questionnaires in a more professional manner, rather than at a 3rd grade level.”

11. “It may be useful to do a lecturer feedback every time that the lecturer changes because, if for example we have a lecturer week 1-4, by the time you ask for feedback on them at the end of term, we have forgotten any important things we may have written at the time when they were teaching. I would be prepared to do this as often as needed if the system was quick.”

12. “Tell students the main results and how they are being addressed.”

13. “The old feedback system really was quite a time waster, as it asked us to comment on every tiny aspect of each module. I think students will be mainly concerned about the competence of lecturers and seminar tutors, as well as the module content and provision of study materials. As long as there's a chance to make extra comments, feedback questions don't need to go into so much detail.The economics department feedback system is at the other extreme. It takes just 10 seconds but doesn't even provide space for additional notes. That's no good either.Thanks for sorting this out!

14. “More communication about how our feedback is being used.”

15. The following 7(!) comments are all written by one person. It was such a lengthy comment that we splitted it up into 7 individual comments. This is some very well thought over stuff (as are the other comments). But at this point, it is highly appreciated that someone took that much time respond to our survey. Whoever you are, you are awesome doing this! 

16. It's useless asking "How useful were the assessments in terms of enhancing and evaluating your own learning?" if the assessment(s) in question is(/are) not yet contemporary.

17. Also, there are lots of questions I always throw proverbial darts at to decide my answer to; one such question (or rather, assertion, to be precise) is: "accessibility and willingness to help"; given that seminar tutors are obligated to support our learning, accessibility should be (and more often than not, *is*) pretty much normalized across tutors. "Willingness to help" on the other hand is completely irrelevant given that the tutor *is* accessible and can present answers to your questions clearly. I couldn't care less if the tutor I ask a question from is unwilling to help as long as they *do* help nevertheless, and as long as the quality of that help doesn't suffer as a result of their unwillingness. So "accessibility and willingness to help" is utterly useless; erase it from existence please, if you can.

18. Also, about "enthusiasm for, and ability to motivate interest in, the subject" ... interest in a subject derives from internal factors, just like interest in a particular vocation or a particular course of study. In other words: you'd have to be Superman to be able to "motivate interest" in a subject (and actually, even Superman wouldn't suffice). This question therefore serves no relevant purpose and should probably be discreetly disposed of.

19. Another one is: "How would you rate the intellectual challenge of the module?" --> how is this relevant? Whenever I come to this question, I ask myself if they are just adding more and more irrelevant questions to make their feedback system seem "comprehensive" when, in reality, it's just a bloated piece of shit.

20. Furthermore, the three questions regarding module materials could just be joined into one: "How useful did you find the module materials, e.g. lecture notes, seminar exercises, textbook(s), etc.?" followed by a textbox headed "Please specify:" Why should they be joined? Well, more often than not, the usefulness of seminar materials exhibits a high positive correlation with the usefulness of lecture materials, so if one is shit, you can pretty safely assume that the other is, too (e.g. Finance 1 -- both very good, GSEB -- both piss-poor, FIS -- both so-so, GEB -- both pretty good, Econometrics 1 -- both extremely good). In fact, I have yet to come across a module where the lecture materials were useless where the module materials weren't, and vice-versa. And, even if it *is* the case that they differ (which, in most cases it won't be, but anyway) then you have the textbox where you can provide further details as desired.

21. Also, there are lots of questions I always throw proverbial darts at to decide my answer to; one such question (or rather, assertion, to be precise) is: "accessibility and willingness to help"; given that seminar tutors are obligated to support our learning, accessibility should be (and more often than not, *is*) pretty much normalized across tutors. "Willingness to help" on the other hand is completely irrelevant given that the tutor *is* accessible and can present answers to your questions clearly. I couldn't care less if the tutor I ask a question from is unwilling to help as long as they *do* help nevertheless, and as long as the quality of that help doesn't suffer as a result of their unwillingness. So "accessibility and willingness to help" is utterly useless; erase it from existence please, if you can.

22. I'm sure there are other things as well, but I can't be bother to correct each and every thing wrong with the current feedback system. To summarize, the feedback system is crap and should be redesigned from the ground up. It's very cool to see that you guys are taking an active stance at doing something about it.

23. The feedback during the term would only concern seminar tutors and the one in the end both lecturers and tutors. They have been problems with some seminar tutors so a feedback during the term would be a good idea

24. Even we do give our opinion about modules we had, do they really change? some of our modules are not particularly that good and I am pretty sure previous students have complained about them but still nothing much has changed. Therefore some how I don't know if it is worth doing the feedback thing if no one bothers to change it.

25. Possibly make feedback forms available after each seminar/lecture so if a student/handfull of students have something they want to say they can there and then. Otherwise they may have forgotten their comment/review idea by the end of the term.

26. Less information to fill out - only want to give a breakdown of my opinions on the course, who/what was good/bad. The current system is too time consuming to fill out.

27. I want to know the outcome of the feedback given. For example: the results and the subsequent action taken. Not much to ask?

28. Let students rank lecturers so that students who are looking into taking a class taught by that lecturer can see what past opinions have been. Let students review modules (for the same reasons as above)