Student Guide to Surveys at ANU

In your journey as a student at ANU, you will be invited to participate in a range of surveys to provide feedback on various aspects of your experience.

How does this impact me?

Your voice counts. Surveys help us listen to the ANU community and provide us with critical data to inform what decisions we take.

Broader than our community, surveys also help the higher education sector and government to better understand and support students' higher education experiences in Australia.

How does it work?

ANU Standard Surveys are the surveys the Institutional Research team will invite you to via your ANU email and reoccur at the same time every year.

Standard Surveys at ANU include strategic surveys run by government or peak bodies, such as the Australian Government's Student Experience Survey, and strategic surveys approved by the Vice-Chancellor, or Deputy Vice-Chancellor(s), such as SELT. Standard Surveys are scheduled and run in specific periods throughout the year to ensure students have a good opportunity to participate in these important collections. You can see exact dates for these surveys on the Register of Approved Surveys and Calendar.

ANU Institutional Research is an expert team in the central Planning and Service Performance Division that manage, administer, and report on a wide range of internal and external ANU student and staff surveys. Surveys are seen as critical for gathering feedback to enhance quality, service improvement and planning at ANU. Planning and Service Performance is independent of ANU Colleges and Schools.

You will receive invitations directly from ANU Institutional Research or from peak bodies (e.g. the Social Research Centre via QILT) on behalf of the government. ANU sometimes also invites external survey providers, so that we can benchmark our student experience with the world. Advance HE helps us do that for our Higher Degree Research Candidates through the Postgraduate Research Experience Survey.

Students can receive invitations to Non-Standard Student Surveys during the year from other units in the University and for specific topics. However, any survey asking ANU students for feedback must get permission from the Planning and Service Performance Division, to prevent ANU Students from being asked too often for feedback that may not be valuable to you and to protect your privacy.

If you will need to survey ANU students (e.g. for a research purpose), please read the information on our Non-Standard Student Surveys webpage to understand your responsibilities, HERE.

The Policy: Student Surveys and Evaluations and Procedure: Student Surveys and Evaluations outlines this and our obligations to you in detail.

ANU Standard Surveys Calendar

For detailed overview and specific dates for all surveys at ANU including Non-Standard and Australian Government surveys, please see: Register of Approved Surveys and Calendar