Student surveys privacy notice

National Student Survey (NSS) 

The NSS is being carried out by Ipsos, an independent research agency, on behalf of the Office for Students (OfS) and UK funding and regulatory bodies. The NSS is carried out in the public interest. Your contact details will be transferred to Ipsos for the purpose of the NSS only, as described in sections 9.3 and 9.4 of the conditions of enrolment.

Personal data is held in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. All your responses will remain strictly anonymous and at no point will you be identified to us. Any personally identifiable data will be securely deleted by Ipsos after the survey closes and will not be shared with any third parties. The University only receives anonymised, aggregated results. More information about Ipsos's privacy notice is available on the NSS website.  

Postgraduate Taught/Research Experience Surveys (PTES/PRES)   

The information that you supply on the survey will be held and processed in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act 2018, and EU General Protection Regulation (GDPR).   

Information will be used by the University of Derby (as Data Controller) to review the student experience and identify areas for improvement. We retain this data for 3 years; after such time, it will be securely destroyed.    

The University of Derby acts as the Data Controller, determining the purpose and means of data processing. JISC and Advance HE act as Data Processors, responsible for securely hosting and analysing the survey data as per the University’s instructions. All sub-processors engaged by Advance HE or JISC comply with GDPR and are subject to contractual agreements ensuring data protection. 

All responses collected through PTES/PRES are stored on the JISC online survey platform, and survey responses are shared with Advance HE and sub-processors to conduct national-level research, analysis and reporting.  

You will not be identified in any report produced. Your survey response is confidential. None of your teaching staff, nor anyone in your School or College, will be able to identify you from your responses (unless you personally choose to identify yourself in your open comments).  

Participants are advised to avoid including identifiable personal information in open comments to maintain confidentiality. Results will be reported back to relevant staff as aggregated data, including any open comments, which will be grouped by question. Your individual responses cannot be seen by academic staff. However, please note that your comments will not be edited before staff see the responses. So, if you refer to your own personal circumstances, this could make such a comment identifiable.  

Your responses will be held securely by JISC, the University of Derby, and Advance HE. Survey data is stored securely using encryption, and access is restricted to authorised personnel only. 

Your participation in this questionnaire is voluntary. Our lawful basis for processing this data is Consent.  

To withdraw your consent, email students@derby.ac.uk with your name and survey details. Your responses will be excluded from the dataset if the survey is still open, and the data has not yet been anonymised. Data that has already been anonymised cannot be withdrawn from the survey.  

Anonymisation involves removing any identifiers from the data to ensure that individual responses cannot be traced back to specific individuals. After your data has been anonymised, it is no longer possible to withdraw your consent, as anonymised data cannot be linked back to you. 

Please note however, as a data subject, you retain the right to exercise control over your personal data before anonymisation. These rights include: 

For further information, or to exercise your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at dpo@derby.ac.uk. Alternatively, you can email gdpr@derby.ac.uk for more information. 

You can read more about how we handle your information in our data governance privacy notices. 

Programme Questionnaire (PQ)

The University of Derby takes the views of students seriously and acts on the feedback received to ensure that we provide a high-quality academic experience. All data collected in this survey is confidential and will be held securely. None of your teaching staff, nor anyone in your School or College will be able to identify you from your responses (unless you personally choose to identify yourself in the open comment boxes). Results will be reported back to relevant staff as aggregated data, including any open comments which will be grouped by question. Your individual set of responses cannot be seen by academic staff. However, please note that your comments will not be edited before staff see the set of all responses. So, if you refer to your own personal circumstances this could make such a comment identifiable.

The information you supply in this survey will be held and processed in line with the Data Protection Act 2018, GDPR and subsequent legislation. It will be used by the University of Derby (as Data Controller) to help make continual improvements to our teaching and module delivery. Anonymised, aggregated data may be shared for external benchmarking. Your identity will not be revealed in this process. We retain this data for five years; after such time, it will be securely destroyed.

Our lawful basis for processing this data is your Consent, which is obtained by completing and submitting. Should you wish to withdraw consent, please do not submit.

For further information, or to exercise your rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at dpo@derby.ac.uk. Alternatively, you can email gdpr@derby.ac.uk for more information. 

You can read more about how we handle your information in our data governance privacy notices. 

Settling in Survey 

The information that you supply on this survey will be held and processed in line with the UK GDPR, Data Protection Act 2018 and EU GDPR.  

Information will be used by the University of Derby (as Data Controller) to review the Welcome experience and identify areas for improvement. In order to effectively evaluate the Welcome experience the university will use your unique student ID to analyse responses against demographic data (including academic programme, disability, ethnicity, and age). The only identifier used will be student ID, no names will be saved against responses. All results are aggregated (categorised by specific demographics) before being shared with internal teams who review best practice and areas for enhancement internally.  

Our lawful basis for processing this data is Consent. 

We retain this data for 3 years; after such time, it will be securely deleted. As a data subject you can request withdrawal of consent at any time by contacting gdpr@derby.ac.uk. However, anonymised data cannot be withdrawn from the survey. Further information on how we handle your information can be found here on our website - www.derby.ac.uk/its/datagov/privnotice/.

Jisc Digital Experience Insights Survey

This survey is being carried out by University of Derby in conjunction with Jisc. You will be asked questions about your course and your experiences of digital learning. Your participation in this questionnaire is voluntary and you can stop at any point without your responses being included in the dataset. More information regarding data protection can be found at https://derby.ac.uk/about/data-governance/data-protection/.

The data is used to help improve the digital experience of students. Jisc will use anonymised aggregated data for analysis, public reports and presentations.  

After completing the survey, you will be directed towards a form where you can enter your details for a prize draw to win an iPad or gift vouchers.   

Please use your university e-mail to limit the survey participation to Derby students. Your response to the survey will remain anonymous as the survey takes place in a different form and your name will not be recorded against your survey response.