The eagle-eyed will have spotted that the NSS scores that appear in the guide are different from those that we have seen before. This is not just the case for this university, but for other institutions,. the table below shows the league table’s NSS figures against the results released by Ipsos-Mori last year.

The methodology used in constructing the website is presented on the Guardian website. This ought to explain the difference above – but I haven’t yet figured it out.

In terms of how we fare against our competitors, here’s the same diagram, but sorted in terms of overall NSS satisfaction:

Maybe it’s a good thing that the Guardian records this as 85%, and not 82%!

An area to be investigated is that of value added. In the Guardian table, this relates to both entry qualifications and to the probability of gaining a good degree . The table below shows the results in order of value added (from the Guardian league table) and the percentage of good honours degrees (from the recent CUG table). Guardian data in blue.

We can clearly see that to start to rise up either of these tables, that we need to focus on methods of ensuring that more of our students gain better classifications of degrees. This might involve looking at marking criteria, looking at which modules are consistently causing difficulty, and looking at preparing students for final year study. It absolutely does not involve reviewing and compromising academic standards!