TCD feedback system ‘needs overhaul’

Student feedback systems at Trinity College Dublin are ineffective and need to be urgently overhauled, international experts have told university chiefs.

In a hard-hitting review of the college, the country’s highest- ranked in most international comparisons has also been told that employers and other external stakeholders feel they have no system for engaging with TCD.

Following a visit in March, the international team of academics has commended TCD’s research and commercialisation activity, and efforts to widen access to mature students, those with disabilities, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

However, they heard of widespread student dissatisfaction with support and administrative services that were complex and not well promoted. Even staff in these areas of the college were frustrated and identified an appetite for change.

“Overall administrative and support service structures were characterised as antiquated,” says the report of the review team, chaired by Lynn Meek who heads a higher education leadership and management institute at the University of Melbourne.

A similar 2004 international review recommended all courses undergo student evaluation without delay but the process was found to be still in its infancy. The report for the Irish Universities Quality Board said there were no reporting of issues emerging from student comments in evaluations and students had mixed experiences of getting feedback or action being taken in response.

“The team concluded that the college had no effective means of eliciting systematic evaluations by students in a manner which provided high quality information at a number of levels, and which would facilitate cross-school and programme level comparison to inform its oversight of quality and its institutional decision-making.”

It recommends a complete and urgent overhaul of the student evaluation system in light of national and international best practice. It suggests prioritising a survey of every course, developing a policy on publishing results and intended actions, and developing ways for findings to be used to design improvements to education and strategic planning.

Apart from close links where courses involve professional accreditation or work placements, engagement with employers depended largely on the individual leadership in academic schools.

In its response published with the report, TCD said the recommendations will be addressed in the context of planning and implementing improved procedures, as resources allow in a difficult operating environment: “The college recognises the importance of clearly articulated institutional processes and monitoring mechanisms in providing public assurance of the essential quality of core activities.”