#BoycottNSS Policy
What’s going on?
There’s a policy going to Student Council called “#BoycottNSS” asking ARU Students’ Union (SU) to boycott the National Student Survey (NSS) through not promoting the survey to students in any way. This is because the NSS is going to be used as a measurement of teaching quality in the new Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) which will contribute to a rise in tuition fees.
We think this is such an important issue and will have a big effect on the SU and ARU, so we wanted you to know everything we’re thinking. Here’s a list of pros and cons so you can make an informed decision and have a good debate. If you want to learn more about the TEF you can sign up to Rep Conference where there’s a panel session you can ask any related questions to and a session ran by Grace, our Education Officer, on what TEF is and we’ve planned to do. We believe it is important to present a balanced argument of the reasons why you should vote for or against the policy. Here are the things the Officer Team have thought about...
Why you might vote 'for'...
- We’d be taking a national stance on an important issue and taking direct action against the TEF.
- There is also a policy containing our stance on the TEF going to Student Council – if we vote to #BoycottTheNSS this works with the TEF stance.
- In our Let’s Be Honest campaign, tuition fees have been identified as the highest contributing factor to mental health difficulties for students at ARU (46% of students mentioned fees & finance) – boycotting will be taking direct action against the rising of tuition fees that TEF will bring.
- We have effective resources and the backing of the National Union of Students (NUS) to be able to run the campaign properly.
- We’d be joining 25 Students’ Unions across the country running #BoycottTheNSS campaigns. We’ve already seen evidence that so many SUs boycotting is swaying the government not to use the NSS as a metric for the TEF.
- ARU are already aware of our democratic structures and of the NSS policy – if it is voted through we have pre-warned ARU that we will be running a campaign on this, which helps us to maintain a good relationship with them.
- We will not be boycotting without making sure your feedback is gathered and used in an effective way – we will encourage ARU to use different data to act on student feedback and attempt to gather feedback in an alternative way.
- The NSS is a very limited set of data to begin with; it surveys third year, UK based, undergraduate students and is the most used data. Not relying on the NSS as much as we have in the past means bringing in the experiences of a larger cohort of students.
- University College Union (UCU) have voted to support an NSS boycott. We would be supporting many lecturers and staff that are against the use of the NSS in the TEF.
Why you might vote 'against'...
- We would have less data available to improve courses for 2017/18; we would be relying heavily on Student Staff Liaison Committees (SSLCs) and Module Evaluation Forms.
- We would have serious time restraints on running an effective campaign – with the NSS already open and ARU having planned their focused promotion.
- The scope of the boycott policy that has been put forward may have little impact on students filling out the NSS as the only action would be to not promote the survey. There would be a lot of effort involved to not have a foreseeable impact.
- The research we have done over the last two years showed that we shouldn’t prioritise national campaigning, which boycotting the NSS is (Democracy Review: National Campaigning was listed as 20th out of the 24 options for Executive Officers to focus on; NSS New Questions Research: only 7% of students thought this was a priority).
- The NSS is being used as a less significant metric than it was previously, so potentially boycotting could be a wasted effort when there’s other metrics which have more influence.
- Running a boycott campaign may damage the relationship between the SU and ARU, which is at its strongest point in several years.
- If a #BoycottTheNSS campaign doesn’t go exactly as planned, the impact on ARU’s financial position could be severe.
- Boycotting the NSS could impact the questions that assess the SU’s effectiveness in national league tables.
- We have already agreed with ARU to work in partnership; we have sent out emails from our President asking students to fill in the NSS, published videos talking about this and our logos are on ARU’s marketing material of the NSS.
Leigh Rooney
President
The Vice Chancellor's view
Dear Student Representatives
As you will know we recently launched the 2017 National Student Survey, and we are hoping to exceed last year’s record turnout of 76%. We value greatly the feedback we get from our students, and we have over the past years made significant changes to respond quickly and positively to the information gained through the NSS. These changes have, I hope you will agree, enhanced the quality of the educational experience that subsequent students have had.
Your role as Student Representatives has been vital in creating and sustaining the high levels of engagement we have had with making continuous improvements to our courses through formal and informal feedback, including the NSS, over recent years. The continuous rise in students’ satisfaction here at Anglia Ruskin is powerful evidence of the success of this partnership approach.
We do however recognise the concern that many have around the Government’s intention to use the NSS as one means to judge ‘teaching excellence’ in the TEF, and the implications of the TEF for university fee levels in the future – and we are aware that our Students Union will be debating a motion to boycott the NSS at Anglia Ruskin. In our view any such boycott can only damage our University, as a significantly reduced turnout would serve only to make the results much less reliable, thereby making it much harder for us to use our students’ feedback to improve our work, while also presenting a clear risk to our external reputation. It will not divert the Government from implementing the TEF.
You as our Student Representatives and our Students Union play an essential leadership role and we would strongly urge you to continue to promote our partnership approach to maximising student engagement with the NSS, so that we can continue the great strides we have made in recent years in securing the best possible experience for each of our students.
Prof Iain Martin
Vice Chancellor