General student surveys

Overview

At Federation University, student surveys are a vital tool. They help us plan, deliver, and improve the services we offer to our students. This page provides essential information to ensure that surveys seeking student feedback on University services are well-planned, designed, and implemented. This helps us:

  • Coordinate the timing and number of student surveys to manage the survey load and reduce survey fatigue.
  • Avoid excessive and unnecessary surveys by sharing data and analysing survey results.
  • Ensure quality in our surveys by carefully designing questions, sampling, and delivery methods, and by protecting your privacy and data.
  • Identify surveys that need Human Research Ethics approval to ensure they meet ethical standards.

Scope

This information is for all Federation University Australia staff who are distributing new or existing general student surveys to our students. A general student survey aims to gather feedback on the services we provide to students. This guidance applies to all surveys distributed to the student body or a cohort of the student body, including by post, email, social media, learning management system, face-to-face, or hand-out. Surveys conducted by a third party on behalf of the University are also included.

Surveys governed by other University procedures include:

  • Student evaluations of learning and teaching, governed by the Student Feedback Survey Procedure.
  • Research surveys requiring Human Research Ethics approval, primarily governed by the Applying for Human Research Ethics Procedure.

These instructions do not apply to surveys:

  • Conducted as part of the Australian Government Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) survey suite.
  • Optional feedback forms provided in a static location, e.g., on a service counter.
  • Marketing surveys targeted at prospective students, i.e., students who are not actively studying or have not accepted offers to study at a Federation University Campus.

Please note: Qualtrics is the internal survey tool used at the University. Read more about Qualtrics here.

Important information and links

Timeline

Please allow 10 days for the Survey Team to respond to your survey proposal form. You should also allow enough time to make any changes needed before sending the survey live for student feedback.

Important information: To ensure robust response rates for our regulatory surveys (i.e., SFS, QILT), general student surveys will be kept to a minimum (max 2) during scheduled regulatory survey periods. It is best practice to submit your survey proposal form well in advance. Please check the current year Student Surveys Campaign for upcoming projects.

Please note: All feedback submitted through surveys is collected in accordance with the University’s Information Privacy Procedure and is regarded as confidential. All data collected is de-identified for reporting and decision-making within the University and cannot be retrieved or modified by end-users.

Contact us

For further information and assistance, contact the Surveys Team by emailing surveys@federation.edu.au or phone +61 3 5327 924.