Evaluating learning and teaching is core to enhancing student learning. The Subject Experience Survey (SuES) provides opportunity for students to reflect and offer meaningful feedback on their learning and teaching experiences in subjects.
The Subject Experience Survey gathers largely quantitative data, with added scope for student comments. The survey covers aspects of learning design and delivery that have been shown to be influential on overall student success at Charles Sturt. The survey is premised on two key principles:
Student feedback is not the sole source of evaluation data on educational quality. However, students’ views are an important part of evidence-based approaches used to inform improvements in teaching practices and the quality of subjects and courses.
The Subject Experience Survey is a subject-level survey sent to students each teaching period. The survey is completed confidentially online for every subject they are enrolled in. Subject surveys open to students three weeks prior to the end of the session and close one week after a session ends. Survey results are released to staff and students seven days after the closure of surveys, which allows for the subject grades release process to be finalised.
Surveys for year-long and WPL subjects are exceptions to this normal survey cycle. You can check their date details in the schedule of survey key administration dates
As a teaching professional, you need to critically reflect on your activities, to judge the quality of those endeavours, and to seek quality improvements. It’s not just about you thinking of the surveys as something that just happens – it’s about you thinking, 'How can I use them to deliver a better learning outcome for my students?'
Further, surveys allow us to incorporate the student voice into curriculum review and design processes in a meaningful way. Survey results also provide evidence for compliance requirements and to review academic staff performance.
The SuES is centrally administered by the Office of Planning and Analytics using an online survey system. There is a link to the Course Evaluation survey platform in each subject site and in Staff Links on the Interact2 dashboard.
At the start of each year, the Office of Planning and Analytics publishes a schedule of survey key administration dates for all teaching sessions in that year.
You may not have been assigned a subject coordinator role for the subject. Contact the SuES Information Officer at sessupport@csu.edu.au
Students receive an automated email invitation when the survey opens and two further reminders if they have not completed the survey. The notification includes a link to the survey.
Students who are enrolled in the subject on the survey open date will be able to access the survey. Withdrawn students do not have the opportunity to complete a survey.
Yes, you can monitor the response rate from the Course Evaluation dashboard.
Survey results are released later the same day on which subject results are released to students. You will be notified by email when your report(s) are available.
Reports only become accessible after the survey closes. This is to protect the integrity of the data collection process. You will be notified by email when your report(s) become available. If you believe you should be able to access your report(s) but cannot, contact the SuES Information Officer at sessupport@csu.edu.au
To obtain results for previous sessions where you were not the Subject Coordinator, you must gain confirmation from your Head of School who can email sessupport@csu.edu.au with their approval.
While this may have some intuitive appeal, there is no real evidence to suggest this is the case. Many academic staff receives very strong SuES ratings.
No. Students provide their feedback on a confidential basis so you cannot link responses to individual students. Only under circumstances where a student has made abusive, threatening or discriminatory comments will an identification process be undertaken for purposes of disciplinary action.
If you would like some guidance on understanding what your SuES results mean, log a request with Service Requests
All subjects with greater that 75% workplace learning component are classified as WPL within SuES. This classification is based on information contained within CASIMS. Changing the classification of a subject within the SuES can only be achieved by working through the CASIMS approval process.