NAAC Student Satisfaction Survey: How It Works and How to Run Your Own Student Feedback

The NAAC Student Satisfaction Survey (SSS) is an online survey that the National Assessment and Accreditation Council runs itself, as part of assessing a college or university. The institution uploads the details of its enrolled students, NAAC emails them its questionnaire of 20 objective questions and one subjective question on the teaching-learning process, and the result counts as metric 2.7.1 under Criterion II, Teaching-Learning and Evaluation. The institution does not run the survey or set the questions.

That is why the SSS cannot be your student feedback system. NAAC separately expects every institution to collect, analyse and act on feedback from students and other stakeholders (Key Indicator 1.4, Feedback System), and the habit of listening to students all year is what shapes how they experience teaching when NAAC finally asks them. This guide explains how the SSS works, what Criterion 1.4 asks for, where NAAC's reforms stand, and how to set up your own system.

What the NAAC Student Satisfaction Survey is

Under NAAC's Revised Accreditation Framework (RAF), launched in July 2017, the assessment has three main components: the Self Study Report (SSR), the Student Satisfaction Survey and the Peer Team Report. NAAC's manual explains the reasoning plainly: the efforts of teachers and the institution "can be considered impactful only to the extent students perceive it to be meaningful", and student satisfaction is "a direct indicator of the effectiveness of teaching learning in the institution".

How NAAC conducts the SSS

The NAAC Manual for Affiliated/Constituent UG and PG Colleges (December 2019) sets out the conditions:

• The institution submits the database of students, with email IDs and mobile numbers, when it fills in its online SSR. The template asks for name, class, gender, student ID, mobile number, email ID and degree programme.
• The SSS is conducted at the same time as NAAC's Data Validation and Verification (DVV) process.
• The questionnaire (20 objective and 1 subjective question) is emailed to students.
• Responses must come from at least 10% of students or 100 students, whichever is less, for colleges, and 10% or 500, whichever is less, for universities.
• If responses fall below these limits, the metric is not taken up for evaluation.
• The survey is completed within one month of starting.

NAAC's December 2022 manual for universities adds that institutions must upload data of at least 50% of currently enrolled students. Rules change between editions, so check the current manual for your institution type.

Where the SSS sits in the assessment

The SSS is Key Indicator 2.7, with a single metric, 2.7.1: "Online student satisfaction survey regarding teaching learning process". Its weightage, out of a total score of 1,000, depends on the type of institution:

Source: Table 2, NAAC Manual for Affiliated/Constituent UG and PG Colleges (December 2019). For an affiliated college, the two together carry 80 of 1,000 marks.

The SSS versus your own student feedback

"Student feedback" is really two tasks, with different owners:

You should not coach students for the SSS. You can find and fix the problems they care about long before NAAC asks them, which is what an ongoing feedback system is for.

What NAAC Criterion 1.4 asks for

In the December 2019 manual for affiliated colleges, Key Indicator 1.4 (Feedback System, 20 marks) has two metrics of 10 marks each:

• 1.4.1: whether the institution obtains feedback on the syllabus and its transaction from students, teachers, employers and alumni. The top option is all four.
• 1.4.2: how far the feedback process goes. The options run from "Feedback not collected" through "collected", "collected and analysed" and "collected, analysed and action has been taken", up to "Feedback collected, analysed and action taken and feedback available on website".

The evidence NAAC asks for is a year-wise report analysing the feedback, a URL for the stakeholder feedback report, and an action taken report "as stated in the minutes of the Governing Council, Syndicate, Board of Management". The December 2022 manual for universities combines these into one 20-mark metric with a similar ladder, ending in feedback "hosted on the institutional website".

Collecting forms is the lowest rung. The marks are in analysis, action and publication.

Where NAAC's reforms stand

NAAC's assessment framework is changing, and the dates have moved:

• November 2022: the Ministry of Education set up a committee under Dr K. Radhakrishnan to propose reforms to assessment and accreditation. Its draft report was open for public feedback from 19 May 2023, with the deadline extended to 15 August 2023.
• 16 January 2024: the final report was presented to and accepted by the Education Minister. It recommends binary accreditation (accredited or not accredited) and Maturity-Based Graded Levels from Level 1 to Level 5, and proposes "Stakeholder validation" to bring stakeholders into accreditation and ranking.
• 27 January 2024: NAAC's Executive Committee decided that binary accreditation would be implemented "in the next four months" and the graded levels "by December 2024".
• 5 December 2025: a NAAC public notice still described Basic (Binary) Accreditation as "to be launched soon". Institutions accredited under the RAF whose validity expires between 27 January 2024 and the launch of MBGL accreditation get an extension of up to three months after that launch, and "should continue to maintain and improve quality through their IQAC cells".

We could not confirm from an official NAAC document whether Basic Accreditation or MBGL has launched since that notice, or what the new framework's student survey will look like, so check the notices on naac.gov.in. Every document so far keeps stakeholder input in the process, so a working feedback system is useful under either framework.

What to measure in student feedback

Cover the curriculum (for Criterion 1.4), teaching, and the campus services that shape the student year. Keep each form short.

For more question ideas, see our list of survey questions for college students.

How to set up a student feedback system for your college

1. Give the IQAC ownership. Name one feedback coordinator, with a contact in each department.
2. List your feedback points. Courses and teachers each semester, plus fixed places on campus: library, labs, hostels, canteen, washrooms, the accounts and examination counters.
3. Design separate short forms. One form for curriculum feedback per stakeholder group (students, teachers, alumni, employers), and short service forms of three to five questions for each location.
4. Decide on anonymity. Students are more candid when they cannot be identified. If you collect roll numbers for follow-up, say so and limit who can see them. Our guide to confidentiality and security in feedback systems covers the options.
5. Make it easy to respond. A QR code on the classroom notice board or the canteen counter takes seconds to use, unlike a paper form at the office. See how a QR code feedback system works.
6. Route each issue to an owner. Hostel complaints go to the warden, lab issues to the head of department, washroom issues to housekeeping, with a time limit for each.
7. Keep year-wise records. Accreditation looks back over several years, so store responses, analysis and actions by academic year from the start.

How to act on feedback and close the loop

Criterion 1.4 rewards institutions that analyse feedback, act on it and publish it. A simple annual cycle:

• Analyse each term. Summarise results by department, course and facility. Read the comments, not just the averages, and note recurring themes.
• Agree actions in a meeting. Take the analysis to the IQAC and then to the Governing Council, Syndicate or Board of Management, and record decisions in the minutes. Those minutes are the action taken report NAAC asks for.
• Act and record. Note what changed, who did it and when, such as a syllabus revision proposed to the Board of Studies.
• Tell students. Post a "you said, we did" notice. Students who see results keep responding.
• Publish the report. Host the feedback analysis and action taken report on your website, as the top option in 1.4 requires.

Common mistakes

• Confusing the SSS with your own feedback. Waiting for NAAC's survey to find out what students think is too late.
• Collecting only from students. Criterion 1.4 asks about teachers, employers and alumni too.
• Collecting and filing. Forms with no analysis or action taken report earn the lowest options.
• Weak student data. Wrong email IDs and mobile numbers in the database you submit mean students never receive the SSS, and below the response threshold the metric is not evaluated.
• No reply to complaints. A student who reports a broken lab computer and sees nothing happen stops giving feedback.

How LazyMonkey helps colleges collect student feedback

LazyMonkey supports the second half of the picture: the institution's own, ongoing feedback. It does not connect to NAAC or run the SSS. With LazyMonkey's student feedback management system for universities and colleges:

• You place QR codes in high-traffic areas of the campus, and students scan and give feedback without installing an app. You can generate QR codes in bulk for individual locations and configure each one with location and service tags.
• Feedback forms are customisable, so you can run separate forms for courses, hostels, the library or the canteen.
• The right staff get instant SMS notifications and reminders, and an escalation matrix moves unresolved issues to the next level within set time limits.
• Administrators see real-time analytics and trends on a dashboard, with actionable reports that support the analysis Criterion 1.4 asks for.
• You can close the feedback loop by updating students on the actions taken based on their feedback.
• Digital collection removes the paperwork and manual compilation of traditional feedback forms.

If you are building or rebuilding your college's feedback process ahead of accreditation, see how the QR-based student feedback system for colleges works, or book a demo to walk through it with your IQAC team.

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