The haves and the have-nots of the academic world

The Guardian today ran a story on the casualisation of academic staff at UK universities, headlining a Sports Direct comparison. The story is based on a UCU campaign against a lack of security for academic staff. What’s behind the numbers and the issues?

Firstly, the issue. Universities have three types of employment: permanent contracts; fixed term contracts; and ‘atypical’ contracts. Each of these comes in full-time and part-time mode. ‘Atypical’ is a tricky category: there are lots of reasons why. Here’s what HESA have to say about the definition (scroll down and expand 'Terms of employment'  for the source):

"Atypical staff are those whose working arrangements are not permanent, involve complex employment relationships and/or involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider. These may be characterised by a high degree of flexibility for both the work provider and the working person, and may involve a triangular relationship that includes an agent. Source: Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Discussion Document on Employment Status, July 2003, paragraph 23.

In addition to this definition from the DTI, some HE specific guidance has been devised by HESA in consultation with HEIs. Atypical contracts meet one or more of the following conditions:

• are for less than four consecutive weeks - meaning that no statement of terms and conditions needs to be issued,

• are for one-off/short-term tasks - for example answering phones during clearing, staging an exhibition, organising a conference. There is no mutual obligation between the work provider and working person beyond the given period of work or project. In some cases individuals will be paid a fixed fee for the piece of work unrelated to hours/time spent,

• involve work away from the supervision of the normal work provider - but not as part of teaching company schemes or for teaching and research supervision associated with the provision of distance learning education,

• involve a high degree of flexibility often in a contract to work as and when required - for example conference catering, student ambassadors, student demonstrators."

Notice here that of the four special conditions the second and fourth cover a lot of ground. And this is the UCU’s point: teaching a module on an hourly-paid basis counts as atypical; being a tutor bought in to cover a short-term teaching need counts as atypical. These are the hourly-paid lecturers which universities often rely upon.

(It’s worth noting that ‘atypical staff’ can also include PhD students who do some teaching as part of their PhD study. This is a normal part of their PhD; witho7ut this experience they would be hindered in their future career.)

Universities say that they need flexibility: sometimes running a course depends on getting sufficient students to make it worthwhile. In this case, if your staffing cost is flexible, then the threshold for being able to run a course is lower (you don’t have to factor in the risk cost of redundancy if it doesn’t run). On this argument, the possibility of employing people on flexible contracts means that more courses are offered than would otherwise be the case.

The other problem highlighted by UCU is academic staff on fixed-term contracts. Such people have a job with regular hours – they can be full-time or part-time – but the contract has an end date. Legislation means that there has to be a reason for the fixed-term-ness (such as time-limited funding), and universities will argue that most research grants, for instance, are a fixed pot of money, to deliver specific outputs by a certain date. There’s also reasons like maternity cover: a person is needed for a specific period for a specific reason.

So what does the data show? It’s possible to recreate (or nearly so) the UCU data using HESA staffing data. HESA staff table 1 gives you numbers of full-time and part-time academic staff and also atypical academic staff at each university. Table 6 gives the number of academic staff – full-time and part-time – in Teaching only, Teaching and Research, Research only, and Neither teaching nor research roles at each university. And finally table L gives the proportions of staff, across the whole sector, in those same four categories who are on fixed-term contracts. With some simple arithmetic it’s possible to work out how many academic staff at each university have what UCU calls insecure employment – that is, are on a fixed-term contract or an atypical contract.

The headline data is stark.

• 52.3% of all academic staff – that is 145,575 people - are either on atypical or fixed-term contracts. 

• 67.4% of staff on ‘Research only’ contracts – 32,488 people – are on fixed term contracts.

• 54.4% of staff on ‘Teaching only’ contracts – 28,251 people – have fixed term appointments.

• 35.3% of academic staff on full-time or part-time contracts (that is, excluding those with atypical contracts) are on fixed-term contracts. That’s 70,015 people.

There are some things that the data doesn’t show.

One big one is that fixed term contracts can become a career pattern. 20 or more years of renewed two- or three-year fixed-term contracts is not unusual for researchers. It’s hard (very hard) for people to plan on this basis. Starting a family is a brave option without security of income. Getting a mortgage can be difficult without permanent employment.

A second big question is the proportion of teaching that is done by staff on these contracts. It isn’t unusual for a researcher who has been awarded a large research grant to ‘buy out’ their teaching duties. This can mean an hourly-paid tutor, or a fixed-term part-time role. So teaching, particularly at a research intensive university, may not proportionately be carried out by the faculty whose names you’ll find on the website. This doesn’t mean that the teaching will be bad: the tutors will still be knowledgeable, keen and expert. But is it quite what was expected?

It’s important to be measured. ‘Sports Direct’ are notorious for Victorian working practices; universities are not in the same league. But there are a lot of people who are not making a stable career in academia. They’re working on the margins. They’re the ones without an office, or even a nameplate on a door that students can find. And the data shows that there’s a lot of them about.

Redesign in progress

I'm having a redesign of my blog, to match the redesign of my webpages which will soon be launched.

Apologies if anything  looks a bit odd (or perhaps a bit more odd than usual) over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the new site should be up-and-running by early November.

Book review - Shifting Stories, by Andrew Scott

[This is a review which I've posted to Amazon]

Andrew Scott is a skilled coach and facilitator (I have worked at an organisation which engaged him to facilitate strategic change) and in Shifting Stories he sets out a powerful approach – the ManyStory approach – which he has developed from his rich experience.

The heart of Shifting Stories is the recognition that we all tell ourselves stories about the world, and our position in it, to help us understand and deal with challenges and situations. (Sometimes these are tacit, unconscious stories, sometimes quite the opposite.) Andrew Scott helps the reader to understand how we can surface and articulate those stories, and by doing so, put ourselves in a position to create new stories and transform situations. This is not a pious and preachy book; it is well-structured and clear, with examples of how the approach can change individuals and groups as they resolve conflict and adapt to changed circumstances.

I would place Shifting Stories alongside other works which I have found to be insightful and helpful. Its identification of the importance of scripting reminded me of some elements of Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of highly effective people. The recognition of the importance of people’s emotional response to change and to conflict, and of addressing this as a means to dealing with the substantive issues, has parallels in Chip and Dan Heath’s Switch: how to change when change is hard. I am not saying that “Shifting Stories” is a retelling of these ideas, or is in any way derivative. Far from it! Instead, it complements them, and its grounding in a British organisational context strengthens the message, for me at least.

I work as a management consultant supporting a specific sector – higher education – and can immediately see lessons from Shifting Stories which will enable me to be a more effective practitioner. It is definitely a book which I will come back to: the clear and specific guidance about implementing the ManyStory approach, and the examples of when it works (and, very commendably, when it did not work) makes it an important part of a consultant’s toolkit. I can imagine the same for those whose practice involves coaching.

And it should have a far wider audience. Any manager keen to develop their skillset and approach to management would do well to read this; any person with aspirations to organisational leadership will benefit from Andrew Scott’s understanding about narratives and their power to shape organisational behaviour and performance. And any person (that means all of us, I think) will benefit from the insights in the book about how to make sense of the stories we all use in our personal and professional lives, and how to create a better story.

Andrew Scott writes with a light touch and an easy style. The book is engaging and lifts the spirit with hope and possibility. The interesting discussion towards the end about what makes a good story is a fascinating point for the next step in the development of the ideas in the book. I’d be interested to explore how the notion of the hero (see Joseph Campbell, The hero with a thousand faces; and Christopher Vogler, The writer’s journey) might influence the development of storytelling as a tool for organisational development. But that is another book, not yet written. I’d commend the current book – Shifting Stories – as a good read, with a clear message about a powerful tool for individuals and managers.

On jargon

Away from the brouhaha of current HE policy developments (TEF, Brexit, Diamond Review, HE and Research Bill …) and back to an initial purpose of this blog – the art and science of management. I caught myself the other day speaking jargon without knowing it. Perhaps a word or two on jargon might be a good idea.

What is jargon anyway? I think there are two distinct uses, one acceptable (and for which we have a different name) and one bad.

The acceptable is when it is genuine technical language, used to denote a concept which is clearly defined and understandable, but which cannot be expressed more simply by other words. So, subject benchmarking is a jargon term within the world of higher education quality assurance: it refers to the use of agreed statements in different disciplines which set out shared expectations about capabilities of graduates in a discipline, expressed in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes. It’s a lot easier to say subject benchmarking than it is to repeat all of that last clause. So as long as those involved in the conversation understand that this is what subject benchmarking refers to, then all is well. It is helpful jargon, as it enables communication to be shorter and more focused, and therefore potentially, more complex ideas to be expressed and developed. Humanity 1, World 0: well played, everybody.

There also unacceptable jargon, which I think comes in two flavours. The first is where jargon conceals disagreement. Think about hard Brexit and soft Brexit. At the moment these terms have great currency in political and news discourse. But do they have a clear meaning? I’m not sure – it seems more that they are used as continuation of the remain-leave debate, without much reference to the legal, financial or political realities of the UK’s leaving the European Union. Please note that I’m not trying to make a point here about how or whether Brexit should happen, simply that the terminology used in the debate isn’t helping us. (I blame Mrs May for this – if she’d managed a less tautological line than Brexit means Brexit we might be able to engage more seriously with a serious issue).

The other flavour is where the jargon passes the test of meaningfulness, but fails on significance. Either because the material isn’t important (says who!) or because it isn’t about something that you’re personally interested in. Here’s a wonderful example. Jargon here is an interesting expression in the English language – I use technical language, you use jargon, they are unutterably trivial.

Is the use of jargon ok? Well, I think it is, as long as all of those involved in the discussion know what it means. And if it’s useful language to them, then they’re being smart. But often communication goes beyond the immediate audience, and if this might be so, perhaps better to cut down on jargon, or at least define your terms up front.

And what of business speak? On the radio a couple of weeks ago I heard a big data expert talk about drilling down into users of social media. That’s not a good image, and immediately tells you why jargon isn’t always appropriate. And don’t get me started on filler jargon such as ‘on a going forwards basis’ …

Dreaming spires

Oxford University reports today (2 September 2016) that its 2016 entry has the highest proportion (59.2%) of state-school educated students for four decades. See the report from the BBC.

An Oxford College and two buses

No doubt this is good news, but it seems to me there’s a long way to go. Let’s have a bit of a further poke at this.

(Disclaimer: I went to state school and didn’t get a place at Oxford. But I’m trying my best not to have a chip on my shoulder about it. Going to LSE instead (again, a pretty elite institution) was the best thing that could have happened, and I really wouldn’t have thrived amongst the dreaming spires!)

Firstly, how what are the relevant populations? The most recent Department for Education data (nb this is for England only) give the following numbers of 16-18 year olds entered for at least one A level; I’ve added the proportion of the whole which this represents:

Students entered for at least one A level or Applied single/double award A level
State	153,034	59%
Independent	33,999	13%
FE College	74,468	28%
Total	261,501	100%

You’ll see that there are three categories of institution – state and independent schools, and FE Colleges. I haven’t been able to source the actual numbers from Oxford’s data, so don’t know the detail, but my assumption is that they mean that 40.8% of the 2016 intake come from the independent sector – that is, the 59.2% figure is the sum of all state-educated entrants. Why do I assume this? Because if they had entrants from FE colleges as well then it would be a stronger story that they’re becoming more diverse, and they’d have said so. So, 40.8% from independent schools it is.

This means that the 13% from the independent sector become over 40% of the total; and the almost 87% from the state sector become not quite 60%.

Oxford admitted just over 2600 UK-domiciled new undergraduates in 2014 (again, the most recently available data.) Assuming that this number stays about the same, then we can see how many independent and state-school educated students they will have, and compare it with what a proportionate distribution would look like:

	Percentage		Numbers
	Actual	National proportion	Actual	National proportion
State	59.2%	87.0%	1,539	2,262
Independent	40.8%	13.0%	1,061	338
Total	100.0%	100.0%	2600	2600

So the actual number of independently-educated students attending Oxford this autumn will be over three times the proportionate share of independent schools amongst those taking A levels - 1061 compared to 338. On a simple reading, you’re three times more likely to go to Oxford then you should be, if you go to an independent school.

What conclusions do I draw from this?

Firstly, there’s a manifest unfairness here. It is good that Oxford is doing something about it; and very good that that something is beginning to show results.  Three cheers for Oxford. And keep it up – you’ve a long way to go!

But the underlying unfairness is one which Oxford cannot be blamed for, and cannot address.  Independent schools are characterised mostly by their fee paying status. This enables them to have better facilities than state schools, and smaller class sizes. This in turn means that they are better at getting good A levels, and helping their students’ gain confidence. As long as this gap exists, between what state schools can do, and what independent schools can do, then we’ll see a difference in outcomes. And the difference in outcomes that we currently see is based primarily on family wealth.

I’m not trying to blame individuals for this, or make them feel bad. But as a society it seems that we’re selling ourselves short if we don’t enable all people to maximise their chances in life, and that for me means making state education better. A lot better. This is how we make society more equal, and probably better and more prosperous for all. 

Four nations

One of my most rewarding professional duties is acting as Programme Lead for the AUA's Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Administration, Management and Leadership.

Its the time of year for updating programme materials, and its clear that we need to give more guidance around the diverging higher education systems of the four nations. To that end, I've drafted - for comment by you, dear reader - a one page summary of some of the critical differences. You can find it on the resources page of my website.

This is the sort of thing which is made much better by criticism, and so I'd be very grateful for any feedback you might have. Is it accurate? What important differences are missing? How could it be better presented? and so on. If you'd like to, either leave comments on this post, or email them to me: hugh@hughjonesconsulting.co.uk. I'd be very grateful!

Thank you!

That 2.8% - an update

I blogged a couple of weeks ago on where the 2.,8% fee increase came from.

Eagle-eyed Sweeping Leaves reader Nick Catterall identifies a plausible source. Says Nick:

"I have been working away at our CMA related updates and as a result have spent quite some time going over the recent CMA findings report. One point within this talks of clearly showing what index the inflation rate is linked to when notifying students of our ability to vary fees in keeping with inflation, using RPI as the example. With the RPI index in mind, looking at the Statista website, it shows the Office of Budget Responsibility figures as 2.8% RPI forecast for the 2nd quarter of 2017. The published forecast is from November 2015..."

And indeed the OBR November 2015 forecast does show this.  Moreover, the RPIX (RPI excluding mortgage interest payments) forecast is 2.8% for the whole of 2017. You can see all of the supporting data in the 'economic and fiscal outlook supplementary economy tables' spreadsheet. The timing fits with the policy development framework, and in particular any behind-the-scenes lobbying in relation to fees.

So it looks like the mystery about the provenance of the 2.8% may be solved. Of course this doesn't address the larger questions - is this in line with the commitments made about no automatic increases at the time of the 2010 changes? (thanks to Aaron Porter for reminding me of this) and also how exactly Universities will follow CMA guidance and indicate the inflation rate to be applied?

NSS Decoded

The results of the National Student Survey for 2016 were released yesterday, and there’s much jubilation at those institutions which have done well, accompanied by a judicious silence from others. All final year undergraduate students are invited to complete the study, which asks a range of questions about their experience at university and their learning. It also includes one question to sum up their overall experience, and it is this question which drives many published rankings. Students are asked to say how much they agree or disagree with the following statement:

 “Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course”

The possible answers are “Definitely agree”, “Mostly agree”, “Neither agree nor disagree”, “Mostly disagree” and “Definitely disagree”. The outcomes are reported as the sum of the percentage of respondents who definitely or mostly agree, this being reported as the overall satisfaction.

I’ve posted before about how this oversimplifies things. For example, the following scores from two institutions would get the same overall satisfaction rating, but how different they are:

	Definitely disagree	Mostly disagree	Neither agree nor disagree	Mostly agree	Definitely agree
University A	20%	0%	0%	50%	30%
University B	0%	0%	20%	20%	60%

Both A and B have an overall satisfaction of 80%. But 20% of those who go to A are very unsatisfied; and of those who are satisfied, three in four at B are really satisfied, compared to only three in eight at A. University B definitely has greater student satisfaction than University A, but the simple overall measure doesn’t show it.

But there is value in simplicity. I prefer a different measure, which also has the virtue of reporting one number per institution, but which gives more nuance: the Grade Point Average (GPA). This gives a numerical weight for each different category of answer (that is, 1 for “Definitely disagree”, 2 for “Mostly disagree” and so on, up to 5 for “Definitely agree”) and multiplies these by the percentage reporting the relevant response.

So, using the examples above, University A scores 20% of 1 (Definitely disagree) plus 50% of 4 (Mostly agree) plus 30% of 5 (Definitely agree), which gives a GPA of 0.2+2.0+1.5=3.7.

University B scores 20% of 3 (Neither agree nor disagree) plus 20% of 4 (Mostly agree) plus 60% of 5 (Definitely agree), giving a GPA of 0.6+0.8+3.0=4.4.

You can see that with GPA it’s easier to compare the two universities: both universities score above 3, showing that overall students are positive; and B’s score of 4.4 is more than A’s score of 3.7, which reflects the more positive response of students at B.

So what happens if we use GPA to rank universities in 2016? I’m glad you asked, as I’ve done a comparison. The table shows UK universities ranked by the NSS method and by GPA. I’ve excluded from the list FE Colleges and alternative providers, in line with other NSS rankings you might see, so we have 159 institutions. (There's a bit more blog after the table, so please do keep scrolling down!)

NSS method			GPA method
University	%	Rank	GPA	University
The University of Buckingham	97%	1	4.72	Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Brighton and Sussex Medical School	95%	2	4.70	St Mary's University College
St Mary's University College	95%	3	4.61	University of St Andrews
Courtauld Institute of Art	94%	4	4.59	The University of Buckingham
University of Keele	94%	5	4.51	University of Keele
University of St Andrews	94%	6	4.49	Liverpool Hope University
Aberystwyth University	92%	7	4.48	Rose Bruford
Bishop Grosseteste University	92%	8	4.43	Central School of Speech and Drama
Harper Adams University	92%	9	4.42	The Royal Veterinary College
Liverpool Hope University	92%	10	4.41	University of Dundee
Coventry University	91%	11	4.40	Harper Adams University
Heythrop College	91%	12	4.40	Leeds College of Art
Stranmillis University College	91%	13	4.40	University of Lincoln
The Royal Veterinary College	91%	14	4.39	Conservatoire for Dance and Drama
The University of East Anglia	91%	15	4.39	University of Exeter
The University of Lancaster	91%	16	4.39	University of Oxford
University of Dundee	91%	17	4.38	Coventry University
University of Exeter	91%	18	4.37	Aberystwyth University
University of Lincoln	91%	19	4.37	Bangor University
Bangor University	90%	20	4.37	Loughborough University
Medway School of Pharmacy	90%	21	4.37	The University of East Anglia
Queen's University of Belfast	90%	22	4.37	The University of Essex
Rose Bruford	90%	23	4.37	The University of Lancaster
Swansea University	90%	24	4.37	University of Cambridge
Conservatoire for Dance and Drama	90%	25	4.36	The University of Bath
Central School of Speech and Drama	90%	26	4.35	The Royal Academy of Music
The University of Bath	90%	27	4.35	The University of Kent
The University of Essex	90%	28	4.35	The University of Surrey
The University of Kent	90%	29	4.34	Medway School of Pharmacy
The University of Leeds	90%	30	4.34	University of York
The University of Surrey	90%	31	4.33	Swansea University
University of Cambridge	90%	32	4.33	The Open University
University of Newcastle upon Tyne	90%	33	4.33	University of Newcastle upon Tyne
University of Oxford	90%	34	4.32	Queen's University of Belfast
Heriot-Watt University	89%	35	4.32	University of Portsmouth
Loughborough University	89%	36	4.32	Courtauld Institute of Art
Nottingham Trent University	89%	37	4.31	Stranmillis University College
Royal Holloway, University of London	89%	38	4.31	The University of Chichester
The Open University	89%	39	4.31	Bishop Grosseteste University
The Royal Academy of Music	89%	40	4.31	The University of Nottingham
The University of Birmingham	89%	41	4.31	University of Durham
The University of Nottingham	89%	42	4.30	The University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield	89%	43	4.30	The University of Warwick
University of Durham	89%	44	4.30	University of the West of England
University of Glasgow	89%	45	4.29	Heriot-Watt University
University of Portsmouth	89%	46	4.29	Nottingham Trent University
University of St Mark & St John	89%	47	4.29	The University of Huddersfield
University of Stirling	89%	48	4.29	University of St Mark & St John
University of Sussex	89%	49	4.29	The University of Leeds
University of York	89%	50	4.28	Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama
Aston University	88%	51	4.27	The University of Leicester
Leeds College of Art	88%	52	4.27	University of Aberdeen
The Royal Agricultural University	88%	53	4.27	Birkbeck College
SOAS	88%	54	4.27	Heythrop College
The University of Leicester	88%	55	4.27	Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
The University of Warwick	88%	56	4.27	SOAS
University of Aberdeen	88%	57	4.27	University of Glasgow
University of Abertay Dundee	88%	58	4.27	University of Ulster
University of Ulster	88%	59	4.26	Aston University
Birkbeck College	87%	60	4.26	Royal Holloway, University of London
Cardiff University	87%	61	4.26	University of Abertay Dundee
Edge Hill University	87%	62	4.26	University of Sussex
Oxford Brookes University	87%	63	4.26	University of the West of Scotland
Teesside University	87%	64	4.25	Edge Hill University
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts	87%	65	4.25	Royal College of Music
The University of Chichester	87%	66	4.24	Falmouth University
The University of Huddersfield	87%	67	4.24	Royal Northern College of Music
The University of Liverpool	87%	68	4.24	University of Northumbria at Newcastle
The University of Reading	87%	69	4.24	Wrexham Glyndwr University
University of Chester	87%	70	4.23	The University of Reading
University of Strathclyde	87%	71	4.23	University College Birmingham
University of the West of England	87%	72	4.23	University of Gloucestershire
University of the West of Scotland	87%	73	4.22	Cardiff University
University of Winchester	87%	74	4.22	The City University
Anglia Ruskin University	86%	75	4.22	The University of Birmingham
Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh	86%	76	4.22	University of Southampton
Royal College of Music	86%	77	4.22	University of Strathclyde
Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama	86%	78	4.21	Anglia Ruskin University
The University of Hull	86%	79	4.21	Plymouth College of Art
University College Birmingham	86%	80	4.21	The University of Hull
University of Bristol	86%	81	4.21	University of Winchester
University of Derby	86%	82	4.20	University of Chester
University of Gloucestershire	86%	83	4.20	University of Stirling
University of Northumbria at Newcastle	86%	84	4.20	University of Wales Trinity Saint David
University of Southampton	86%	85	4.19	University of Derby
De Montfort University	85%	86	4.19	University of Bristol
Falmouth University	85%	87	4.18	Liverpool John Moores University
Guildhall School of Music & Drama	85%	88	4.18	St Mary's University, Twickenham
Hull and York Medical School	85%	89	4.18	Staffordshire University
Manchester Metropolitan University	85%	90	4.18	The Royal Agricultural University
Newman University	85%	91	4.18	The University of Bolton
St Mary's University, Twickenham	85%	92	4.18	The University of West London
Staffordshire University	85%	93	4.18	University for the Creative Arts
The City University	85%	94	4.18	University of Plymouth
The Robert Gordon University	85%	95	4.17	Oxford Brookes University
The University of Manchester	85%	96	4.17	Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
University for the Creative Arts	85%	97	4.17	Queen Mary University of London
University of Plymouth	85%	98	4.17	Teesside University
University of Worcester	85%	99	4.17	University of Bedfordshire
Wrexham Glyndwr University	85%	100	4.17	University of East London
Bath Spa University	84%	101	4.16	De Montfort University
Birmingham City University	84%	102	4.16	The University of Northampton
Canterbury Christ Church University	84%	103	4.16	The University of Salford
Edinburgh Napier University	84%	104	4.16	University of Worcester
Leeds Beckett University	84%	105	4.15	Bath Spa University
Liverpool John Moores University	84%	106	4.15	Brunel University London
Queen Mary University of London	84%	107	4.15	Edinburgh Napier University
Sheffield Hallam University	84%	108	4.15	The Robert Gordon University
The University of Northampton	84%	109	4.14	Guildhall School of Music & Drama
The University of West London	84%	110	4.14	Imperial College London
The University of Wolverhampton	84%	111	4.14	Roehampton University
University College London	84%	112	4.14	Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
University of Bedfordshire	84%	113	4.14	The Arts University Bournemouth
University of Wales Trinity Saint David	84%	114	4.14	Middlesex University
Brunel University London	83%	115	4.13	London Metropolitan University
Cardiff Metropolitan University	83%	116	4.13	Manchester Metropolitan University
Glasgow Caledonian University	83%	117	4.13	The University of Liverpool
Goldsmiths' College	83%	118	4.13	York St John University
Imperial College London	83%	119	4.12	Cardiff Metropolitan University
Middlesex University	83%	120	4.12	Leeds Beckett University
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland	83%	121	4.12	The University of Wolverhampton
The University of Bradford	83%	122	4.11	The University of Manchester
University of Central Lancashire	83%	123	4.11	Goldsmiths' College
University of East London	83%	124	4.11	Newman University
University of Greenwich	83%	125	4.11	The University of Bradford
University of Sunderland	83%	126	4.11	University College London
York St John University	83%	127	4.11	University of Central Lancashire
Bournemouth University	82%	128	4.10	Buckinghamshire New University
Buckinghamshire New University	82%	129	4.10	Glasgow Caledonian University
King's College London	82%	130	4.09	Birmingham City University
Roehampton University	82%	131	4.09	Canterbury Christ Church University
Royal Northern College of Music	82%	132	4.09	University of Greenwich
The Arts University Bournemouth	82%	133	4.08	Hull and York Medical School
The University of Bolton	82%	134	4.08	Norwich University of the Arts
The University of Salford	82%	135	4.08	Sheffield Hallam University
University of Hertfordshire	82%	136	4.08	The University of Westminster
Leeds Trinity University	81%	137	4.08	University of Hertfordshire
London Metropolitan University	81%	138	4.07	King's College London
London South Bank University	81%	139	4.07	London South Bank University
Plymouth College of Art	81%	140	4.06	Southampton Solent University
Southampton Solent University	81%	141	4.05	Kingston University
The University of Westminster	81%	142	4.05	Leeds Trinity University
University of the Highlands and Islands	81%	143	4.05	University of Brighton
Kingston University	80%	144	4.04	University of Suffolk
St. George's, University of London	80%	145	4.03	Bournemouth University
University of Brighton	80%	146	4.03	University of Sunderland
University of Cumbria	80%	147	4.02	University of South Wales
University of Edinburgh	80%	148	4.02	University of the Highlands and Islands
University of South Wales	80%	149	4.01	University of Cumbria
University of Suffolk	80%	150	4.01	University of Edinburgh
Norwich University of the Arts	79%	151	3.98	St. George's, University of London
SRUC	76%	152	3.94	Trinity Laban
University of London Institute in Paris	76%	153	3.88	SRUC
LSE	75%	154	3.85	LSE
Glasgow School of Art.	74%	155	3.84	Glasgow School of Art.
Trinity Laban	72%	156	3.82	University of the Arts, London
University of the Arts, London	72%	157	3.80	University of London Institute in Paris
Ravensbourne	71%	158	3.73	Ravensbourne
Writtle College	68%	159	3.71	Writtle College

Made it this far? Well done!

Although many institutions stay in roughly the same place in the rankings, there are some big differences in both directions: Stirling, for instance, ranks 48^th by the NSS satisfaction measure, but 83^rd on GPA. And Bolton, for another example, ranks 134^th on the NSS measure, but 91^st using GPA. So the GPA measure is more revealing and richer as a single score than the satisfaction percentage alone.

GPA isn’t a perfect measure, of course. There’s an arbitrariness about assigning a consistent numerical difference between the five points on the scale: we don’t know how much individual respondents would weight the difference between the answers. And the simple percentage satisfaction score is more intuitive, and links more obviously directly to the raw data. This makes it easier to use.

So what’s the moral? Simply this: if you’re going to use the NSS to compare universities, look beyond the simple satisfaction measure. The data, publicly available, holds a wealth of information which you can use to better understand how universities are perceived by their students.

Caveat emptor!