Posted: May 2, 2019
Anne Tyrrell, Chief Executive Officer of DN Colleges Group said: “This is an award wholly based on student reviews of their experience, so to be the national winner is just such a fantastic achievement. The Award recognises “the most supportive and engaging learning environment for degree level courses”.
To be recognised by our students as the best in the UK, is indeed the highest level of recognition possible.
There were 10 nominations in our category and many more applications, so the competition was incredibly tough. As the runner up last year and the Winner this year, so many congratulations to all our students and staff at our University Centres for such a well-deserved achievement.
An absolutely fabulous achievement. Our staff and students have made us very proud!”
DN Colleges Group comprises of North Lindsey College, Doncaster College and University Centre and the UCNL in Scunthorpe.
Steven Johnstone, Director of Higher Education at the UCNL said: “To win the award this year, off the back of being runners up in 2018, demonstrates the consistent quality of learning experience that we offer at DN Colleges Group.”
Now in its sixth year, the Whatuni Student Choice Awards’ main categories are compiled entirely from student reviews. The reviews are a combination of electronic and physically collected reviews by the Whatuni team, who this year travelled 43,000 miles. The results are both quantitative (scores) and qualitative (free text) and the total reviews for 2018/19 collected were in excess of 41,000.
The reviews-based categories are: Accommodation, City Life, Clubs & Societies, Courses & Lecturers, Job Prospects, Student Support, Students’ Union, Uni Facilities, International, Postgraduate, Overall Experience (University of the Year), FE College and Independent HE.
The additional submission-based categories, as judged by the Whatuni Student Advisory Board, are Giving Back and Prospective Student Engagement.
Whatuni? Project Coordinator, Monisha Sooba said: “Over the last six months, our review collection team collected over 41,000 student reviews from 160 institutions and travelled more than 43,000 miles across the UK (that’s equivalent to travelling to Australia and back!). Compared to previous years, 2019 has seen the biggest review collection yet.”
Monisha continues: “The scale of this year’s collection process kept the team on the go for a full six months. It was a busy time for us visiting campuses around the UK and talking to students about their studying experiences. My team and I found the work particularly inspiring, especially knowing that we’re contributing to helping students make more informed decisions about the right universities and courses for them.”
To feature in the main table categories, institutions have to have taught degree-awarding powers. The threshold for featuring in the main categories is 150-200 reviews, depending on institution size.
Whatuni uses up-to-date course data from UCAS, KIS and The Complete University Guide table rankings, as well as its own data and insights collected throughout the year, including the 162,000+ student reviews that are currently hosted on the site.
For further information contact Emma Doyle from the Marketing Team on 01724 7109309