The first of the year’s SOLE surveys opens tomorrow, December 3rd, and I hope that as many of you as possible will participate. We find the feedback from students very useful.
The survey will be open for final year courses that have run this term and some Biology courses. There will be Spring surveys for courses that are not yet complete.
As DUGS I get to see the SOLE results for the whole department and, with the help of course convenors and lecturers, use this information to identify things that we are doing well and areas where we may need to think about improvements. We particularly value specific comments from students that explain either what was good about a course or method of instruction or what was not so good.
From conversations I’ve had in the past year I have the impression that not all students realise that comments for each lecturer are also sent directly to the lecturer concerned (by the College Registry, which runs the SOLE surveys for all departments). So although the survey is completely anonymous, please bear this in mind when completing the survey. Lecturers are human too. We like to hear praise if it’s due. We can also take criticism on the chin but it’s most likely to be absorbed if it’s constructive and well-reasoned.
In the past I have asked convenors to formulate an action plan of changes that they will implement as a result of the feedback and to tell students at the start of the course the next time they run it what improvements have been made. The weakness in this scheme is that the students who completed the survey don’t get to hear about the impact of their comments. So this year I aim, with the help of course convenors, to compile summaries of their responses to SOLE comments that we can publish on the departmental web-site for you to see. I hope that will give you added assurance that we take SOLE comments very seriously.
As an added incentive, anyone who completes the survey will be automatically entered into a raffle for £20 Amazon vouchers; we offer 3 vouchers for each year group in each degree stream (Biology or Biochemistry).
Hurry now — survey will close on Thu 2nd January (i.e. well before the start of the Spring term)!
And finally, here is some music to play while you are filling out the survey: