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What would you like the Union to do?

I would like to the Union to create a physical feedback mailbox/pigeonhole when people can post any feedback they have. Ideally, there would be one for each faculty. I would also like the union to create an online form for all forms of feedback. This feedback would be broken down Faculty by Faculty and would allow both academic and non-academic feedback.

Why would you like to do this?

I think the physical feedback mailbox would open another avenue to collect feedback from the student community. While we have increasing use of digital systems across the university, some may want to submit feedback in a more confidential/private way, especially as many of the current feedback forums are run or administered by departments.

Currently much of the feedback faculty and departmental reps receive is either face-to-face or through NSS and AESR. While these are good ways of getting feedback, the former way can be limited, time consuming and ineffective. The latter often relate to issues which have already occurred and can no longer be fixed for the cohort. Some departments are trialling Unitu, an online service administered by an outside company and departments but this anonymises much of the data and does not cover a faculty level. It is also not particularly user-friendly and rather inefficient. Relaying student concerns is the core of the union's mission. Almost every other part of the Union is digitised, why not the most important part?

How will this affect students?

The physical feedback mailbox will allow students another way to contact their reps and have their concerns voiced. This is especially when students would like to remain anonymous. While there is a small possibility of this proposal being abused, the lack of criminal damage on campus suggests this would be a minor issue. This would also be an inexpensive proposal which could be very helpful in getting more information from students about their experiences and current issues within the university. The online feedback form will allow students a simple avenue to have their feedback heard and allow another way to resolve issues which previously could languish at the departmental level.