Student Representation and Feedback

The School of Health in Social Science is fully committed to excellence in learning and teaching and to enhancing the student experience. Listening, and responding to, students’ views about their experience of the School, and of the University, are an essential part of our quality assurance and enhancement processes. We look forward to working with all of our students to review and enhance the student experience, and also to celebrate where things are working well.

Student Representation and Student Staff Liaison Committees

Programme Reps are the foundations of student representation, they represent the views of their peers for their programme, or year group, and are elected in week 1 or 2 of the first semester of the academic year.

Programme Reps are ambassadors who represent all students in their cohort, working with staff in Schools, and the Edinburgh University Students’ Association, to make positive changes and to improve the student experience. In addition to hearing about concerns about issues that students may have, the School is also interested to be given positive feedback on aspects of the student experience that work well. Minutes of student-staff liaison meetings will be made available online (access using EASE login).

In addition to Programme Reps, each School within the University elects two further Representatives: an Undergraduate School Representative and a Postgraduate School Representative. Their collective role is to represent their students to the School, the wider University and the Students’ Association. The School Reps are elected in the student elections which take place in March (for UG positions) and October (for PG positions). You should go to your School Rep if you identify an issue which crosses multiple courses and programmes.

School Level Representation

Student representatives are also invited to join a number of the School’s governance committees, including the School’s Learning and Teaching Strategy Committee and the School’s Board of Studies.

Feedback questionnaires and student surveys

The School values the continuous feedback students provide through course enhancement questionnaires and other student surveys.

1. Course enhancement questionnaires

At the end of each course, online course enhancement questionnaires are distributed to all students on a course, asking them to comment on their experience of that course. This feedback is anonymous. It will be used to review and improve the course delivery in future years. Some course organisers (e.g. honours course organisers) will also ask students for mid-course feedback during teaching. This feedback is highly valued by the School to allow us to celebrate successes and respond to any areas of difficulty. Course feedback is also an important source of information for annual course monitoring during the annual Quality Assurance process.

2. Other Student Surveys

There are a number of other Student Surveys through which the University seeks to gain more of an understanding of how students feel about particular issues. The results of the surveys are analysed and recommendations for changes are made based on the findings. These surveys include the National Student Survey (NSS) for final year undergraduates (a national survey and the results are made available to the public), the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) and the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES). In these surveys, students are asked to comment on the experience of being a student at the University of Edinburgh, including aspects such as Learning and Teaching, Assessment and Feedback, Academic advice and support, Learning resources and Organisation and Management.