Central Surveys

The survey will run from 05.05.2026 – 30.06.2026

It’s worth participating: Help improve academic programs and teaching, and win great prizes!

You can also participate via the ILIAS homepage (Inbox “Your Online-Surveys”).

Surveys of students and graduates make it possible to evaluate learning and teaching across the university and are intended to support faculties and departments with their own quality development measures for learning and teaching.

Process description: Surveys in learning and teaching

Script for explanatory video

Information
Student surveys
Graduate surveys
Additional surveys
Data protection

Search term not found.

The University of Freiburg’s central surveys:

Results of the most recent surveys

Overall reports, individual reports for specific teaching units, and explanations of methodology are available to university members on the internal university network under the tabs “Overall reports” and “Teaching unit reports by faculty” below.

To ensure a clear overview and for archival purposes, reports are available on the website for up to eight years. Older reports are no longer available online, but can be provided upon request.

Blog posts on the survey results can be found here.

What are the surveys about?

The student surveys provide direct insight into which aspects of their degree programme and the corresponding framework conditions students perceive as positive and which they consider in need of improvement. General questions provide insight into the university’s educational structure, while more specific questions focus directly on teaching. Another key focus of the survey is the entry phase of university studies.

The graduate survey focuses on former students in order to learn how their job search went and whether they felt their studies contributed to professional success. It also gathers retrospective feedback on their satisfaction with the study conditions.

You will find detailed explanations of internal and external surveys of learning and teaching in the process description.

Student surveys are conducted every three years during the summer semester.

The next student survey starts in May 2026.

The results report for the most recent student survey (2023) is available here.

Current blog posts on the surveys can be found here.

The questionnaire addresses a variety of aspects, including:

Reasons for choosing a degree programme
Advising and support services
Curriculum content and its delivery
Degree programme requirements and planning
Digital skills
Overall satisfaction

The next graduate survey is scheduled for the winter semester 2027/2028.

The 2024/2025 overall report is available here.

The questionnaire addresses a variety of aspects, including:

Study trajectory and success
Retrospective assessment of the degree programme
Situation after graduation and the transition into the workforce
Current occupation

Current blog posts on our surveys can be found here.

Survey management at the university follows a transparent process that is divided into a planning phase, a data collection phase, and an analysis phase (see the process description for surveys). This approach aims to coordinate survey periods, regulate the frequency of surveys, and ensure methodological review and compliance with data protection regulations.

The following surveys are conducted as part of quality management and accreditation:

The purpose of the survey of disenrolled students is to identify the motivations and life circumstances of students who have dropped out or transferred to another university, and to analyse the different forms and consequences of dropping out or transferring. These findings are intended to help the university identify potential measures to reduce the student dropout rate.

The survey of disenrolled students was conducted each winter semester from 2017 to 2020 as part of the Quality Pact for Teaching (Qualitätspakt Lehre) project. The results reports can be downloaded here.

The questionnaire primarily covers the following aspects:

Reasons for changing degree programmes or dropping out
Admission requirements
Advising and support services
Degree programme requirements
Current employment situation

The entry phase’s importance for academic success cannot be overstated. In light of the increasing diversity of the study body, it is becoming ever more important to provide first-year students with orientation as well as social and academic support within the university environment.

The purpose of this project-based survey was to determine which events and measures first-year students use during the entry phase of university studies and how effective they are. The survey additionally aimed to identify academic requirements that present particular difficulties for students during the entry phase.

The first-year student survey was conducted in the summer semester 2019 as part of the Quality Pact for Teaching (Qualitätspakt Lehre) project and was included in the 2019 student survey.

2020 survey

In July 2020, a brief survey of teaching staff was conducted to gather feedback on teaching conditions and satisfaction with the digital summer semester 2020. Students were also asked to share their views at that time.

The results report for the brief survey of teaching staff is available here.

A blog post on the topic can be found here.

2013 survey

All teaching staff at the University of Freiburg were invited to participate in a central survey for the first time in summer semester 2013.

The results of this survey are summarised in an overall report available here.

Please inform the Quality Management and Accreditation Unit in advance of any surveys related to learning and teaching that will not be conducted by the unit and ensure that the unit is involved in the planning process:

Internal university surveys are submitted to the Quality Management and Accreditation Unit by internal stakeholders (members of the university, such as administrative units or faculties) for review and approval. These surveys are generally conducted by the internal stakeholders themselves.

External university surveys are conducted by stakeholders outside the university (for example, the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW)). As part of this process, the Quality Management and Accreditation Unit reviews the content and methodology of the survey. It also checks whether the survey aligns with the university’s quality management system and consults with relevant departments (e.g. Legal Division / Data Protection Officer). In contrast to internal surveys, invitations and any reminder emails must always be sent via an internal administrative unit of the University of Freiburg for data protection reasons. Information on data protection for the FACE survey can be found here.

Further information

The Quality Management and Accreditation Unit holds non-transferrable licences for the “evasys” survey software, which are fully utilised in the Central Surveys and Central Evaluation Service. The University IT Services (RZ) are not able to conduct public surveys via ILIAS. We recommend the SoSciSurvey evaluation software (www.soscisurvey.de), which has an approved data protection framework and can be used independently by all stakeholders. Please note that you must still create a record of processing activities and involve the Quality Management and Accreditation Unit in a review of the criteria.

Surveys conducted for research purposes are exempt from this process.

If you wish to submit a survey proposal to the Quality Management and Accreditation Unit, please observe the individual process steps, which are described in detail in the process documentation.

Information and contact: Katharina.Harry@zv.uni-freiburg.de

Guidelines for surveys in the area of learning and teaching

Information on data protection in accordance with the provisions of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is available in the data protection notice.

Data protection notice

Contacts

General

befragungen@zv.uni-freiburg.de

Auf dem Foto ist das Portrait einer weiblichen Person zu sehen.

Anna-Lena Huber, M.A.

Anna-Lena.Huber@zv.uni-freiburg.de
+49 (0)761 203 67860
Focus:
– Student surveys
– Graduate surveys

Auf dem Foto ist das Portrait einer weiblichen Person zu sehen. Eine Frau mit braunen Haaren und einer Brille blickt lächelnd in die Kamera.

Katharina Harry, M.A. (part-time)

Katharina.Harry@zv.uni-freiburg.de
+49 (0)761 203 69276
Focus:
– Survey management for internal and external surveys of (former) students, conducted outside of the quality management system (QMS)