The University of Cape Town Selects Explorance Blue to Evolve Institutional Practices Around Course Evaluations

Montreal, Quebec – September 11, 2023 – Explorance, the leading provider of Feedback Analytics Solutions, is excited to announce that Explorance Blue has been selected as the new course evaluation platform by the University of Cape Town (UCT) following a rigorous tender process. 

UCT sought a sophisticated evaluation system to integrate with Amathuba, its new digital learning platform powered by D2L Brightspace. 

While updating its learning platforms, the University undertook its first major review of course evaluations since it moved from paper to online surveys in 2008. This included benchmarking with other universities in South Africa and holding consultations with UCT academic leaders on issues around and uses of student feedback in course evaluations. The insight gathered from that process informed the tender requirement, which was awarded to Explorance in late May. 

“We were keen to invest in a single provider with a broad set of capabilities to consolidate our efforts in making student feedback more meaningful and useful,” said Stephen Marquard, Deputy Director of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching. “Explorance sparked our interest as a sophisticated next-generation platform which, with its add-ons Text Analytics capabilities and Blue Dashboard, will help transform the way we run course evaluations, providing a streamlined and user-friendly experience for students and faculty members.  

“The new system will seamlessly integrate with Amathuba and enable us to gather comprehensive feedback and insights from students as one of the pillars of UCT’s quality assurance mechanisms to support continuous improvement in both teaching practices and curriculum.” 

While not wishing to fully centralize course evaluations at UCT, Stephen said Explorance Blue would “bring capacity and headroom to evolve institutional practices.” He explained: “Working with Explorance allows us to move towards more consistent course evaluation practices. The ability to standardize some questions at Faculty and Department levels enables aggregated views across courses and the institution on student sentiment and feedback, and the text analytics capabilities help to provide immediate insights from large sets of open-ended qualitative responses. If we wish, the platform will support all student experience feedback, from module- or course-based feedback to wider institutional surveys.” 

Stephen continued: “Our goal is to build the role of student feedback as a vital part of the quality assurance process in our institution, giving students an active voice in shaping teaching and learning and the student experience. We are committed to fostering an environment that values student input and continuously strives for teaching and learning excellence. That includes shifting the culture of student feedback on campus, both in terms of how academic staff perceive and use feedback and how through closing the feedback loop, students will increasingly see the process as a meaningful way of contributing to change.” 

With Explorance “fostering a strong community with both an academic and product learning focus,” Stephen added that over time UCT would benefit from mutual knowledge exchange with other institutions. 

John Atherton, VP Sales EMEA at Explorance, said: “UCT is embarking on a transformative journey with Amathuba, and we are pleased that through the tender process, we were ranked as a market leader for our product and D2L Brightspace integration. Having delivered the platform requirement, and with the University looking to move to a newer generation of products around student feedback, we are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the team at Cape Town on this important mission.” 

About the University of Cape Town (UCT)

UCT is one of the leading higher education institutions on the African continent and has a tradition of academic excellence that is respected worldwide. Three worldwide rankings have placed UCT among the world’s top 200 institutions, the only African university to have achieved this distinction. In 2021, UCT was home to around 30,000 and 5,000 staff. UCT aims to produce graduates whose qualifications are internationally recognised and locally applicable, underpinned by values of engaged citizenship and social justice. For more information, visit uct.ac.za.

About Explorance

Founded in 2003, Explorance supports more than 20 million people in their individual journeys of purpose, growth, and impact. As the leading provider of Feedback Analytics Solutions, Explorance empowers organizations with actionable decision-making by measuring students’ and employees’ needs, expectations, skills, knowledge, and competencies. Explorance facilitates continuous improvement and accelerates the insight-to-action cycle leading to personal growth and organizational agility. Headquartered in Montreal with business units in Chicago, Chennai, Melbourne, Amman, and London. Explorance works with 25% of the Fortune 100 and 30% of the top Higher Education institutions, including 8 of the world’s top 10 business schools. The company has clients in more than 50 countries.