Guidance

Hyperlink to the learner satisfaction survey with your college or provider survey

Updated 2 March 2020

Applies to England

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

Your organisation can link your own survey to the learner satisfaction survey so that your learners can respond to both surveys in one sitting. Please follow these instructions:

1. To help you link the learner satisfaction survey with your organisation’s own survey, here is a methodology and wording that takes into account data protection requirements.This wording must be used in conjunction with this method in order to inform learners where their data will be sent at the end of the survey.

2. The hyperlink-embedded methodology used to allow the linking will work:

• across a college or provider intranet
• across email
• or any other Microsoft Office document

It is therefore suitable to be used in most college and provider environments where internet access is available.

Suggested text for intranet/email

The suggested wording to be placed on the college or provider intranet or in the text of an email must be placed above the links to the surveys.

In all cases the Ipsos MORI learner satisfaction survey must be the first link.

Suggested text

You can answer the learner satisfaction survey and (provider name) survey here in one go. Your answers for each survey will go to different places. The 2 surveys are separate but some questions may be similar.

To begin, please follow the first link. This link takes you to the learner satisfaction survey, which is a national survey and learners all over England are taking part. The answers to the learner satisfaction survey go to the research companies Ipsos MORI and RCU. They will add your answers to the learner satisfaction survey questions to the answers from other learners. They will hold the data on the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s behalf and send the ESFA the total number of learners giving each answer. None of your lecturers, trainers or supervisors will be able to see your own answers. When you have finished this first survey, which only takes a few minutes, you will be asked to select ‘submit’ This will bring you back to this page.

(Link to the ESFA learner satisfaction survey)

Once you have finished the learner satisfaction survey, please follow the link below to the (provider name) survey. The answers to the separate (the provider name survey) go to (the provider name and/or their contractors). The (provider name) survey is held and processed independently of the DfE and the learner satisfaction survey. Please ask members of staff from (provider name) if you are not sure who will see your replies.

Technical details of how to set up the system

The technical details of how to set up the system should be straightforward for a member of your staff with IT knowledge to follow.

Technical information for loose linking

The below shows the series of web pages to take you from the starting page to the completion of both surveys.

Step 1

Colleges or providers need to set up a link from their internet home page, or their intranet or a Word or Excel document. The link needs to be set up from this page. Using the wording suggested the learner is instructed to click on the first link.

Step 2

The first link would take the learner to the learner satisfaction survey by opening a new internet page. The original page, your college or provider’s own internet page, would stay open in the window behind. Providers are advised to access the survey from the Ipsos MORI site at (link to survey).

Step 3

Colleges or providers are asked to advise their learners to complete all questions in the learner satisfaction survey and then click on the submit button on the screen.

This would send the learner satisfaction survey data directly over the internet to the Ipsos MORI server using 128-bit encryption. This is widely used and a highly secure method.

Step 4

Having clicked on the finish button, the learner satisfaction survey would close. This would leave page 1, your college or provider home page, still open. This would allow the learners to click on the second link, which could be you college or provider’s own survey, or the survey run for you by your contractor.

This link would open a further window in your browser and the learner could complete this survey. The data from this survey would then be sent directly to your provider’s contractor or your provider’s own systems.

This data exchange would occur completely separately to the learner satisfaction survey and the data will go to a different page, specified by your organisation.