4 | Student Representation and Feedback

4.1.1 | Faculty Feedback

The Faculty strongly encourages feedback from undergraduates on the lectures and classes that it provides, which is vital in helping the Faculty to evaluate the quality of its teaching. It is important that we receive a high level of responses, and that students provide us with a substantial amount of constructively critical, as well as appreciative, feedback.

(Feedback on tutorials is arranged through colleges, all of which have mechanisms whereby students are encouraged to comment regularly on the quality, relevance and effectiveness of tutorial teaching, and to send these returns to the College Senior Tutor or the Head of House.)

Since many first-year lecture-courses are given by multiple lecturers, there are a number of ways in which student feedback is valuable. You may wish to comment on individual lectures that have (or have not) been particularly useful to you.. More generally useful are comments on the structure and coverage of the courses and suggestions for topics which could be included, covered in more detail or omitted. Please do not regard feedback on courses as a last resort, undertaken only if deeply dissatisfied; a report which is generally positive but suggests a number of ways that provision might be improved is of the greatest usefulness to tutors and to the Faculty. As first-year students you are likely to benefit while still at Oxford from any improvements in Faculty lecturing provision.

Feedback can be returned by means of the questionnaire available on Canvas: https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/courses/22234/pages/course-and-paper- feedback?module_item_id=209534

Questionnaires should be completed for all lecture courses and classes. The form can be accessed whenever you wish during the term or at the end of the lecture course; it can thus be used either as a diary, to comment on each of the individual lectures in turn as you go along, or in response to any particular lecture/group of lectures you thought useful, irrelevant or potentially subject to improvement; or you can comment on the course as a whole – its coverage and coherence – and also related matters such as reading lists and book-provision, and any other issues around the Faculty’s teaching-provision. Students have the opportunity to decide whether their comments should be treated as anonymous. Returns are checked automatically to avoid the double-counting of comments.

The forms are used by lecturers, course-convenors and the Faculty in a number of ways. Convenors communicate comments to individual lecturers, and use them to inform their planning of circuses in future years. They also make a report on them to the Chair of the Faculty’s Undergraduate Studies Committee, who prepares a summary and general report for that committee and for the Undergraduate Joint Consultative Committee.

4.2.2 | Undergraduate Joint Consultative Committee

The Undergraduate Joint Consultative Committee meets each term in Fifth Week. The Faculty Board’s standing orders provide that the composition and terms of reference of the Committee are as follows:

Composition:

1. The Chair and Vice-Chair of the Faculty Board (ex officio);
2. four other members of the board's Undergraduate Studies Committee;
3. six undergraduates elected by a college of electors, known as the Assembly, composed of the two members of each college elected annually by the undergraduates reading History, History and Modern Languages, History and Economics, and Ancient and Modern History at each college;
4. a recent graduate, co-opted by the committee;
5. short-term co-optations may also be made subject to the Chair's approval, up to a maximum of three junior and three senior members;
6. members of Assembly may attend the committee for discussion of particular issues, subject to the Chair receiving advance notice;
7. the committee shall have the power to co-opt no more than two members, if necessary.

Terms of reference:

The duties of the Committee shall be to consider and make recommendation as necessary upon such matters as the syllabus, teaching arrangements, library facilities, and general aspects of examinations, but not appointments, matters having an individual reference to a senior or junior member, or to the University’s administrative or technical officers, and long- term financial questions. The Undergraduate JCC shall receive the reports of the External Examiners (subject to the deletion of any identifiable reference to individuals and subject to the External Examiners not specifically stipulating otherwise).

No recommendations of the Committee shall be rejected without the junior members being given an opportunity for discussion with the Faculty Board.

Elections to the Assembly shall be organized within each college by the retiring representatives in consultation with the President of the JCR or a person delegated by him or her.

The JCC is there to help with any problems with the History course in Oxford, so if you have any questions or complaints, tell your college rep, and the JCC should be able to help – it has managed to change things in the past. Recently, for example, the JCC has addressed problems such as language teaching, library opening hours and provision, lecture clashes, lecture feedback, and the relative performance of men and women in Finals and Prelims. It is also asked by the Faculty to provide feedback on various issues, such as the future development of the tutorial system, and the progression of options that are currently on trial. It also organizes events, such as the freshers’ tea party, and the women’s Finals forum.

Joint School Faculties also have a JCC:

4.2.3 | Faculty Committees

4.2.4 | The Humanities Division

Student representatives sitting on the Divisional Board are selected through a process organized by the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU). Details can be found on the OUSU website along with information about student representation at the University level.