Explorance Appointed to Support Cardiff University’s Strategic Response to Student Voice

Montreal, Quebec – March 10, 2021 – Cardiff University has appointed Explorance to collaborate on the development of five pulse surveys around the student experience by the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Explorance is providing strategic consultancy around question design and the process for engagement, working alongside the University’s Student Engagement team. Potential future activity will include a review of Cardiff’s approach to module evaluation.

Claire Morgan, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Education and Student Experience, said that engaging Explorance was an important aspect of the institution’s vision around student voice. “Covid-19 has shone a brighter light on the importance of student feedback, especially receiving and acting on this feedback in real time,” she explained. “We want to move to a more local and agile approach to active listening to our students and ensuring that we close the feedback loop through ongoing dialogue and conversation.”

An internal workshop between university staff working on student voice and the Students’ Union in January highlighted a mutually-agreed opportunity to develop “a real-time approach to capturing feedback to see how our students are getting on, how effective the systems are that we have put in place for them, and what other support they need going forward.”

The Pro Vice-Chancellor emphasised the role of this partnership in supporting the University to have “better oversight, systems and monitoring for student voice”. She said: “The Blue evaluation software is clearly an effective system, as evidenced by its implementation at a number of other universities. The enhanced reporting function will really benefit our institution, as will the fit with our student management systems and the single sign-on functionality.”

About Cardiff University

Cardiff University is a Russell Group university which provides an educationally outstanding experience for its 21,500 undergraduate and 8,900 postgraduate students. Nearly 23% of its student body and 22% of its academic staff are from outside the UK. “We are delighted to be working with Cardiff University to support the development of a strategic and cohesive approach to capturing and responding to student feedback across the institution,” said John Atherton, General Manager – Europe and Africa, at Explorance. “Covid-19 has certainly accelerated a shift to Pulse, or more interim, surveys in relation to both module evaluation and wider student sentiment. This appointment is also a milestone for Explorance: Cardiff being the first institution in Wales we have worked with.”

Explorance in the UK

In the UK, Explorance is also providing the following institutions with its Blue or Bluepulse software: Aberdeen, Birkbeck – University of London, Brighton, Coventry, Durham, Glasgow Caledonian, Kingston, Liverpool John Moores, Loughborough, Nottingham Trent, Northumbria, Sheffield, Strathclyde and the University of Law. In 2019 Explorance was appointed by APUC (Advanced Procurement for Universities & Colleges) to a multi-supplier UK education sector framework for the supply of student module evaluation systems and associated services to HE and FE institutions of Scotland. The framework agreement is also open to member institutions within the UK universities procurement consortia meaning that they too can use the framework and have the option to appoint Explorance directly as the ranked number one supplier through APUC.

Contact:

John Atherton
General Manager – Europe & Africa
jatherton@explorance.com