The National Student Survey (NSS) is an annual survey commissioned by the Office for Students (OfS) to invite feedback on the student experience. As a publicly-funded Higher Education institution, The Open University takes part in this survey every year.
An anonymous sample of students take part in the survey each year, and provide honest and frank feedback on their study journey. The OU Students Association and The Open University then use this feedback to make continuous improvements to teaching, assessment and the whole student experience.
2025
The 2025 National Student Survey opened on Wednesday, 8 January and closed on Wednesday, 30 April. This year, 29,400 OU students took part in the survey.
You can find out more about this year's NSS below:
Discover more about the 2025 National Student Survey
2024
12,907 students took part in the 2024 National Student Survey, and they gave the OU Students Association an 80.5% positivity measure! This was well ahead of the average across all UK student unions (72.9%).
You can read more about the results of the 2024 NSS below.
2024 National Student Survey: Association increases its positivity rating to 80.5%
This figure of 80.5% was based on a question in the NSS, focusing on student unions and students’ academic interests (“How well does the students' union (association or guild) represent students' academic interests?”)
2023
In 2023, we had a positivity rating of 80.2%, which was a great outcome (as can be seen below), so we were delighted to improve on our standing with our students.
2023 National Student Survey results
'You said, we did' – here's what we've done with your feedback
The feedback we've received from the survey has been used to make changes to teaching and assessment, and to improve the experience of Open University students. You can have a look at the changes that The Open University have already put in place below, based on these responses.
'You said, we did' changes, based on NSS feedback
Following responses to the NSS in the past, we as an Association have:
- Made our website and reports fresher and more colourful.
- Furthered our commitment to Student Voice.
- Increased our work on the Annual Membership Survey (and focus groups etc) to allow us to better represent students’ needs.