From the graph above you can draw the following conclusions from the SOLE (Student Online Evaluation) participation rates:

1. Turnout has generally increased over the last 7 years

2. Turnout decreases as the academic year progresses

3. This year has the highest participation rates since SOLE has been running.

How has this been made possible?

1. Targeted emails from the College

2. Targeted pop-ups on College owned computers

3. Departmental staff being more committed to increasing SOLE participation rates

4. Your reps pushing you to fill it in and using this page to help drive inter-year and inter-departmental competition

How can it be improved?

1. Lecturers need to complete the “feedback loop” by stating at the start of their course what changes they have made from the year before due to SOLE feedback

2. Live granular data breaking down the participation rates by year and subject, while it is accessible to all students with an Imperial login. This will empower the reps and academic staff to encourage students to fill it in

3. Posters in undergraduate teaching areas promoting student feedback by using slogans such as: “If you don’t tell us, we don’t know” and having these up for the entire academic year.

4. Each department timetables slots for SOLE to be filled out

Why do high participation rates matter?

1. The higher the response rate, the more representative and accurate the data is

2. A higher turnout makes lecturers and academic staff take the results more seriously

When some departments take part in Summer SOLE I will work with your reps, academic staff and ICT in trying to get at least a 56% response rate.

You can see the previous SOLE results here