Information Services - Plans and Performance
Our aim is to continually improve the services we provide to all our customers and so we consult, plan our activities, then monitor our performance.
We want to provide you with the best possible service.
We are always very interested in hearing your views:
- Send your Library comments or complaints to library@napier.ac.uk or complete a comments slip in any of our libraries.
- Send your IT comments or complaints to the IS Service Desk.
To find out more about the University's complaints process or to make a formal complaint, please visit the Complaints My Napier page.
Our Vision
Information Services (IS) aims to assist all forms of learning by providing access to information. Our service is primarily for students, staff and researchers of the University. However, we also provide resources to other Higher Education institutions and partnership bodies. Members of the public can also benefit from our extensive library collections.
Our Service Standards
The Information Services IT & Library Service Standards are measured and published on a yearly basis:
Information Services IT and Library Standards
Our Service Standard results from 2022 are below:
IS Customer Service Standards 2022 Results
The National Student Survey (NSS) - 2022
The NSS is a UK wide annual survey gathering final year university students’ opinions on the quality of their courses. It is the major means of ascertaining student satisfaction on a national level. Questions 18, 19 and 20 in this survey relate specifically to the quality of IT, Library and resource provision.
- Question 18: The IT resources and facilities provided have supported my learning well.
- Question 19: The library resources (e.g. books, online services and learning spaces) have supported my learning well.
- Question 20: I have been able to access course-specific resources (e.g. equipment, facilities, software, collections) when I needed to.
In 2022 within IS we had some excellent results:
- Q18: 83% - same as 2021
- Q19: 88% - an increase of 2% from 2021
- Q20: 87% - an increase of 3% from 2021
The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey - 2022
The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is an annual survey run in conjunction with Advance HE. Participation is optional and each institution taking part in the survey administers the survey internally.
In 2022 the IS related results were as follows:
- There is appropriate access to physical library resources and facilities: 86% - an increase of 15% from 2021
- There is appropriate access to online library resources: 91% - an increase of 5% from 2021
- There is appropriate access to IT resources and facilities when I am on-campus: 86% - an increase of 13% from 2021
- The support for using IT and accessing resources meets my needs (for example, support with accessing online journals and e-books, using digital learning tools/apps): 83% - an increase of 3% since 2021
Our Customer Feedback
We regularly ask our customers for feedback.
We measure transactional feedback online using our Customer Thermometer survey tool. We contact customers by email once we resolve their request. Our overall aim is to achieve at least 90% overall satisfaction.
In 2022 our customers reported a 96.1% happiness factor. This an increase of 3.5% from the previous year which was 92.6%.
Information Services teams received an average feedback score 4.67 out of 5 (93 % satisfaction) in our UniDesk Service Management system (806 responds) in 2022.
Our Service Level Agreement on UniDesk can be found here: UniDesk Service Level Agreement
Information Services’ Student and Staff User Research
Student and staff user research forms a key part of consultation.
Information Services UX Team
Our UX Team are integral to student and staff research.
Here are some recent examples of their work:
- The UX Team have recruited a larger pool of student casuals to ensure a more diverse representation when engaging with them for user research.
- We ran 3 focus group sessions with students to review the redesign of My Napier. Students reflected on the improvements whilst providing useful insight into areas for continuous improvements.
- The UX Team facilitated usability tests & card sort exercises with staff to inform content hierarchy and site structure for Brand Hub v2.
- The Colleague Engagement Survey reps for IS identified areas requiring more detail so promoted team level focus group discussion and facilitated an additional survey. The results from this additional work allow us to unpick the broader themes and create more meaningful actions for IS.
This is the work the UX Team have coming up…
- The UX Team are working closely with Marketing to explore the ‘route to conversion’ for prospective students. We’re facilitating student interviews, staff interviews, agent surveys, prospective (accepter & decliner) student surveys.
- The UX Team have been asked to facilitate some focus group sessions with students (across all campuses) to ensure we’re providing the setup and equipment that our students want/need to aid their learning.
- The UX Team have been asked to facilitate some focus group sessions with students to better understand the student expectations and aspirations around a digital campus.
Library Circulation Policies Focus Groups
When rewriting our Library circulation policies, as well as consulting with the Students’ Association and staff, we ran focus groups with students asking about their experiences of using the library, their understanding of current processes around borrowing/requests/fines etc and gathered feedback on proposed changes. Following this consultation, we have implemented major changes to our Library policies through simplifying borrowing rules, minimising fines and maintaining effective communications.
Information Services’ New Student Induction Survey
All new students are requested to work through an “Introduction to Computer and Library Services” Moodle module (also known as the IS Induction) as part of their registration process. After students have worked through the IS Induction Moodle module (for each of the September and January intakes) they are invited to complete a survey which provides us with a wealth of valuable feedback – it tells us what students found helpful, but also what could be improved upon.
In September 2022, 4,332 new students worked through the IS Induction and a total of 130 students completed the survey.
- When asked “How would you rate your online Induction to Computing and Library experience as a whole?”, 76 students replied “very good” and 53 “good”.
- When asked “Has the online presentation given you the computing information you need to access your online services?” 130 replied “Yes”.
- When asked “Has the online presentation given you the library information you need to find your reading list books?” 128 replied “Yes”.
We received a lot of positive comments, for example:
- “The Introduction to Computing and Library Services was very informative and I am looking forward to the useful resources that are made available.”
- “Very useful and well presented”
- “Excellent and very explicit! Good job!”
- “It was very educating and informative, made me realized more information I would never had known”.
Monthly Update
Read the monthly update from Information Services and the other Operational Departments - visit the Monthly Update from Finance and Operations page.