The results of the 2025 National Student Survey (NSS), released on Wednesday, 9 July, show that Open SU has achieved an impressive 83.1% positivity rating!
This score reflects how well students feel Open SU represents their academic interests. Our rating is over 7 percentage points higher than the UK sector average of 76%, and once again sees us improve on what was achieved last year.
Our score is up by 2.6 percentage points on last year's measure of 80.5% – demonstrating the ongoing strength of our student representation.
The positivity score is based on responses to the question: “How well does the students' union (association or guild) represent students' academic interests?”
14,648 students participated in the survey, which is conducted annually across publicly-funded higher education institutions, including The Open University.
Natalie Baker, Open SU President, said:
"It is fantastic to see another set of positive results for the OU in this year's NSS. On behalf of Open SU, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions which are invaluable in helping us to improve student experience and we look forward to continuing working with the OU on this. We are delighted and proud to have received a positivity score of 83.1% in how well we represent the academic interests of students in 2025. This is over 7% higher than the national average and once again sees us improve on what was achieved last year."
Katie Hickmott, Vice President Academic Student Voice, said:
“Everyone at Open SU will be incredibly pleased to see another brilliant result in terms of how we represent the academic interests of students. This figure reflects the hard work of our volunteers from across the country and beyond. Representing the voices of OU students is our passion, and we look forward to another academic year of representing you and ensuring your voice is heard.”
View an infographic summary of the result
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The positivity measure for the National Student Survey is measured by the proportion of respondents who gave a positive answer.
The response options for “How well does the students' union (association or guild) represent students' academic interests” were:
- Very well
- Well
- Not very well
- Not at all well
- This does not apply to me
In this case, the positivity measure was calculated by dividing the number of students who answered “Very well” and “Well” by the number of students who gave one of the first four response options. This was then coverted into a percentage figure.