Universities take decisions that affect the lives of their thousands of students, as well as the places where they're situated and the industries their graduates move into. So it's vital that universities involve stakeholders and students in their decision-making processes. Higher education institutions use Delib tools to manage their consultation activity more easily and cost-effectively online.
With two major consultations coming up, including one on a £300m campus redevelopment, the University of Bristol needed an up-to-date and efficient way to hear from students – and to handle a high volume of responses.
They chose to adopt Citizen Space as a built-for-purpose tool for formal consultation. Soon after doing so, they realised there were many other opportunities to use the platform, essentially allowing them to run all their survey and engagement activity online in one place.
Since the university secured conditional outline planning permission, it has been working with communities, businesses, Bristol City Council and the West of England Combined Authority to shape its plans – and a number of changes have been made following feedback.
Spokesperson, University of Bristol
Victoria University wanted to find out what students thought of the mix of services paid for by their annual levy. The University used Simulator to allow students to suggest how much levy funding should go towards each service, while seeing the consequences of their decisions.
More than 15 percent of Victoria University students participated in the exercise, providing the University with valuable feedback, both in the form of students' proposed budgets and the free text comments submitted. The results were one of several inputs in the future planning of services funded by the Student Services Levy.
It was valuable that the Simulator made students think about the student services we offer, as well as the consequences of making changes. Students commented on how refreshing it was to fill out a visual survey for a change, and how they appreciated being able to have their say.
Manager in Student Finance, Victoria University
Anglia Ruskin University had put together a 10 year strategic plan. After an extensive drafting phase, they wanted to get student input on the strategy before finalising any plans. They chose to use Citizen Space to run a formal consultation online, allowing people to respond at their own pace. The platform made it easy to manage the end-to-end process – from survey design to response analysis and feedback.
We're seeking your views as a member of the university community on our draft strategy for the next 8-10 years. Following meetings with more than 2,000 people we developed an internal discussion paper which provided some 360 pages of feedback on our future. This feedback has shaped this draft strategy and we'd really appreciate your views!
Anglia Ruskin University advertisement