It¡¯s that time of year again, when final-year students in the UK are urged to complete the national student survey (NSS). This relentless pursuit of student feedback, through banners, advertisements and corporate screen-savers across the campus not only casts students as customers, but also illustrates the disempowerment?that results from the consumerisation of higher education.

The customer-provider relationship is not, at its core, one of trust and compassion. It is rather one of tension, a power relationship between the service provider who holds the resources and the customer who can exercise the right to go elsewhere in a competitive market.

The problem with viewing university education as a service is that it reduces the customer to a passive subject of the activities of the provider: someone who something must be done to or for. The impetus, the responsibility and the risk are on the provider, not the customer.

A classic definition of a service is: a means of delivering value to customers by facilitating outcomes the customer wants to achieve without the ownership of specific costs and risks.

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In the higher education marketplace, what is the customer¡¯s desired outcome? A happy experience, a good time, an easy ride, a high grade? None of these generate what moral and political philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre calls ¡°internal goods¡± ¨C mastery, the sense of achievement, excellence and moral growth. Rather they are instrumental, focused on the external goods of acquiring money and material goods; they are structured in terms of power and status.

The NSS drives this focus on the external goods of a service and hence promotes a moral vacuum in which the virtues developed in practice are absent. The relationship between the student and the university needs to be reoriented away from a power contest towards a partnership in which the horizons of teacher and student are challenged and extended.

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So I suggest an alternative NSS?that addresses student responsibility, shifts from the passive to the active and positions the student as a committed co-creator of her education and her educational environment.

The alternative National Student Survey

The learning on my course

1. I review and read round to make sure I understand the material
2. I ask questions in and out of class when I don¡¯t understand
3. I am inspired by the discipline and further my education through my own reading and study
4. I find the course and ideas interesting
5. I do more work than I have to in order to complete assignments

Learning opportunities

6. I engage with concepts that are difficult to understand and take time to grasp them
7. I recognise connections between subjects and talk to my peers and staff about them
8. I regularly meet with other students to discuss concepts from the course
9. I regularly attend clubs and talks about the discipline outside class hours
10. I seek to apply my knowledge in and outside university

Assessment and feedback

11. I make sure I understand the requirements of the assessment
12. I seek clarifications from staff about the assignment soon after it is set
13. I am more concerned about the quality of my work than the mark I achieve
14. I go beyond the criteria set because of interest in the work
15. I read the comments I receive about my work
16. I seek to apply them to subsequent work

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Academic support

17. I seek to communicate with staff and arrange regular meetings with my tutor
18. I notify staff of any problems and issues in a timely manner
19. I actively pursue subject choices when available to align my studies with my interests

Organisation and management

20. I attend student staff liaison meetings regularly
21. I seek to contribute positively to improving the course
22. I attend every seminar and lecture on my timetable
23. Where circumstances dictate, I arrange to attend alternative sessions
24. I have read the course and student handbooks and am familiar with them
25. I read and act on communication about the course sent through the virtual learning environment

Learning resources

26. I regularly use IT resources and learning facilities outside class time
27. I understand how to use IT resources to optimise my studies
28. I regularly work in the library and make use of the learning environment
29. I am familiar with and regularly access the library¡¯s online publications
30. Where I have needed course-specific resources I have sought them out
31. I often find my own resources as well as using course-specific resources

Learning community

32. I seek to connect with other students on my course and meet up outside classes
33. I participate in organising student groups and societies
34. I attend research talks and events organised by staff in my discipline
35. I participate in group work in class
36. I attend meetings of my class group outside class hours
37. I have spoken to most of the students on my course
38. I seek to help and advise younger students

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Student voice

39. I make suggestions for improvements on my course
40. I regularly thank staff for their efforts
41. I have experienced the implementation of my suggestions

Overall satisfaction?

42. Overall I am engaged with my studies and belong to the university community.

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Neil McBride is reader in IT Management at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University.