The National Student Survey (NSS) has become one of the most important indicators of student experience in the higher education sector. It’s an important way for students coming towards the end of their undergraduate courses to tell the world about their time at Sussex.
The University’s promotion of NSS 2024 will begin on Monday 29 January and run until the survey closes on 30 April. Academic and Professional Services staff across the University are involved in promoting the completion of the NSS to final-year undergraduates. Whatever your role, your support will be crucial to the success of our campaign to engage students in the survey.
Upcoming briefing session
All staff who will have a role engaging students with the completion of the NSS are invited to an online briefing session taking place from 10am-11am on Wednesday 17 January.
Colleagues planning to attend should email Rosie Jones (Rosie.Jones@sussex.ac.uk), Student Voice Manager in the Division for the Student Experience, by Tuesday 16 January to be added to the calendar event. The session will also be recorded.
In preparation for NSS 2024, Professor Graeme Pedlingham, Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Student Experience), also hosted an initial online briefing for School colleagues leading on the NSS, including course convenors, on Tuesday 12 December.
Recordings of both sessions will be included in a folder of shared resources coming soon.
Resources available for staff
Read our update from December for more information about how you can help promote the NSS and why we encourage students to take part in this optional survey.
The full NSS 2024 Good Practice Guide and Help cards are available on Box. Please familiarise yourself with these if you are involved in survey promotion. You can access the linked documents using your usual Sussex login details, or let internalcomms@sussex.ac.uk know if you experience an issue.
You can also view a schedule of planned central NSS student communications on Box. We encourage you to add your own local activity to this schedule in the lead up to, and during, the campaign.
As in previous years, the Student Communications and Campaigns team will provide a full folder of shared resources on Box before the campaign launches. This will include a briefing pack, digital campaign assets and more.
Visit the Staff NSS pages for further information and answers to frequently asked questions. Students can see more information about the NSS on the Student Hub.
If you have a question about how the survey runs, please contact Denise Cooper, Deputy Director (Academic Services) in the Division for the Student Experience.
About the survey
Managed by the Office for Students (OfS), the independent regulator of higher education in England, and run by polling company Ipsos, the NSS is used to assess the quality of a student’s degree as a whole.
NSS results are made publicly available on the Discover Uni website to help prospective students, their families and advisors make informed choices about where and what to study.
Eligible students will be able to fill in the NSS online at www.thestudentsurvey.com during the survey period. The first formal contact Ipsos will make with students will be on Thursday 1 February, in the first full week of our survey campaign.