Turku UAS piloting Spark course feedback

Spark is an automated feedback system. A survey is automatically launched and closed for all students enrolled in a course. Students receive email reminders from the system inviting them to provide course feedback. 

Turku UAS has not previously collected systematic course feedback. The piloting of Spark will harmonize methods.

–It is important that all students can give feedback. The automated feedback system also makes the teacher's job much easier, as it collects feedback in a structured way, says Satu Helmi, Senior Advisor in the quality group at Turku UAS. 

Moreover, processing the feedback collected by Spark is not just up to the teacher. The feedback report is displayed both to the course teacher and to the training and research manager when sufficient response data has been collected. 

The feedback system will hopefully have a positive impact on the experience of both students and teachers, anticipates Satu Helmi.

–From the students' point of view, a uniform and automated system will promote equality, as in the future everyone will have the opportunity to give feedback on their courses. For the teacher, the system will provide important evidence, whether the course has received excellent feedback or many suggestions for improvement. With Spark, there is no need to guess at feedback. 

The feedback system itself will collect feedback until the autumn semester 2023. The formal launch of Spark will be decided based on the feedback collected during the pilot.