Digital experience insights survey 2020: question-by-question analysis of findings from professional services staff in UK further and higher education

The digital experience insights surveys allow organisations to collect valid, representative and actionable data from their students and staff about the digital environment they offer and to understand how digital technologies are used in learning and teaching as well as across the organisation. The survey findings are a way of informing and driving change, providing data that contributes to digital strategy and helps to secure return on investment. The anonymised data collected in the surveys allows us to gain a national picture of student and staff digital experiences and to monitor this over time, showing progress and highlighting issues of national concern. This year 4,560 professional services staff from UK further and higher education took part in our digital experience insights survey specifically for professional services staff. The survey was conducted between October 2019 and June 2020. In total 32 organisations took part, 24 of these were based in England, 3 in Wales, 3 in Scotland and 2 in Northern Ireland.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been a unique factor this year. Sixty-seven per cent of professional services staff who completed the survey did so before the lockdown on 23 March 2020 and the move to off campus learning and working; 33 per cent completed it on or after this date. This has allowed us to partition the data and provide an initial comparison, providing a brief summary where the differences were found to be statistically significant. It is important to remember that while the impact of COVID-19 may have influenced some responses in terms of perceptions and attitudes, opinions generally take longer to form so it would be methodologically unsound to assume that responses relate specifically to before or after 23 March. Instead, we have drawn on the wealth of additional research on the impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities alongside the survey findings to look forward and consider how we can use this combined knowledge to better understand the role and potential of technology in further and higher education to make positive improvements to the digital experience of all students and staff.

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