PTES Privacy Notice

Why does SOAS run the PTES survey?

SOAS runs the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) to gather honest feedback from our taught postgraduate community on their learning and teaching experience at SOAS. The responses provided through PTES help inform the enhancements the School makes to the learning and teaching experience that you want to see

Are my responses anonymous? 

Yes. All PTES data is anonymous and confidential, both internally to SOAS staff members and to the survey providers, JISC and Advance HE. It is therefore important that you do not name yourself or make available any identifiable information in the responses you provide. Whilst we have put in place measures to avoid identifying individuals, we are aware that in some limited cases a particular set of responses may inadvertently serve to identify a unique individual.

Who has access to my PTES responses and why?

The legal regimes which govern personal data in the UK are the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. 

The responses you provide are used internally at SOAS for programme and School-level enhancements to the postgraduate learning and teaching experience. As such, SOAS is the Data Controller of PTES data, which is used by academic and professional services staff at SOAS in for the purposes outlined in the SOAS Student Privacy Notice.

Anonymised, aggregated PTES data is made available to JISC and Advance HE, who provide sector-level analysis of PTES results and publish this in an annual report. It is important to note that this reporting is done at a provider level to allow for institutional benchmarking across the sector. JISC and Advance HE may also share School-level PTES data, as the Data Processor, with sub-processors for analysis and reporting purposes. This analysis may include text analysis.

If you have any questions regarding the use and/or sharing PTES data, please email SOAS’ Information Compliance Manager at dataprotection@soas.ac.uk

Do I have a right to withdraw or access my responses? 

Yes. You can withdraw the responses you provide in PTES at any time until 5pm on the survey closing date. To do so, please email: studentfeedback@soas.ac.uk

If you would like to change the responses provided, you may re-start the survey at anytime and provide new responses. This will overwrite any responses you had previously provided. 

You have the right to access the information in your survey form. Some information in the forms, such as student domicile, is automatically generated from data held by the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Information about HESA’s collection and use of your personal data. 

To make a request for access, contact the Information Compliance Manager at dataprotection@soas.ac.uk

How long will my information be held?

Individual survey responses will be kept for 5 years from the submission deadline and deleted after this date.

How do I make a complaint

You can make a complaint about the way SOAS is processing your personal data under our Data Protection Complaints Procedure: Data Protection Complaints Procedure | SOAS

Or you can complaint directly to the Information Commissioner's Office through their website: Data protection and personal information complaints tool | ICO