Hi all
We thought it would be useful to share some of the output from our online surveys so that the sector has a good indication of what is being said. Below is some feedback on the request to collect email addresses. If you’ve not completed the online survey yet, and would like to do so, please go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/201112-change-request-20
RESULTS SO FAR
As of 12 August, we've had 44 responses to the online questionnaire for this change. The responses are mostly from colleges but there have also been contributions from other stakeholder groups (including independent learning providers, local authorities, software suppliers and charities).
82% of respondents said that their organisation already collects personal email addresses. However, 57% of respondents anticipate that including email addresses on the ILR will increase their burden. At first sight, this seems an odd discrepancy because if the data is already collected then why is there an anticipated increase in burden? The additional comments give some insight into this. There is a perception that an email address field would just be the first stage and in future years there will be requests to make the completion of the field mandatory.
There have been a few other interesting points raised via the online survey. For instance one or two have pointed us to a press notice from the Department for Education (see – http://www.education.gov.uk/news/press-notices-new/ng-further-freedoms-schools ) which states that sixth form colleges would no longer be forced to do “surveys of learner views”.
There are some supportive responses to this request from providers. Some have said that they’ve actually collected email addresses for many years now so this would not be a problem. There is also the suggestion that this should be supported because e-surveys are much greener than postal surveys.
DATA QUALITY ISSUES
Providers have given a variety of reasons why the data quality is likely to be very poor. These include:
– the learner provides an invalid email address
– enrolment staff have problems reading email addresses or mistype them
– young people change email addresses regularly (one respondent suggests that facebook pages are more constant so why not collect those instead!)
– learners are reluctant to share their email address with third parties
– many learners already object to giving any personal information
OVERALL
To summarise where we are just now, it seems that most learning providers are already collecting this information and so it shouldn’t incur much additional burden to add it to the ILR – provided that email addresses remain optional and there is no expectation that the addresses provided are valid or up to date.
Do feconnect users think this is a fair reflection of the sector’s view on collecting email addresses?
Paul Kelman
The information authority