Opinions that count: Help shape RPTU with "Campus Tour"

Julia Kleine and Maike Rech work in the area of surveys and accreditation in the "Teaching Development and Quality Assurance" department (formerly "Department 4 Quality in Studies and Teaching"). Last summer, they were out and about on campus in Kaiserslautern and Landau with a wide range of questions for students. Their mission: to obtain honest feedback on university life through the "Campus Tour" student survey and improve it sustainably with targeted measures. In this interview, the two tell us exactly how students can get involved.

There have been surveys at RPTU for a long time. What is new or different about the "Campus Tour"?

Maike Rech: That's right, we've been conducting student surveys at the university for a long time. We will continue to conduct digital surveys by email at regular intervals. We can already work well with the data obtained from these surveys, but we have noticed that there are still one or two issues that remain unresolved. As a result of the merger to form RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, we will also reposition ourselves in the quality management of studies and teaching and find new ways to receive direct feedback from students. And that's how we came up with the idea of the campus tour.

Julia Kleine: We set up large metaplan walls in central locations on the Kaiserslautern and Landau campuses, making it hard for students to miss. Some students came in small groups and discussed the posted questions with each other - or directly with us. It was great that we from Quality Management were also able to have a direct exchange with the students. There was a high level of engagement. However, as with the digital surveys, the answers given on the metaplan boards remained anonymous.

Was there a particular focus during the campus tour?

Maike Rech: In this case, our focus was on the topic of "student engagement/participation". There was a fixed set of questions that was specifically tailored to one focus, such as "Why is student engagement changing?" or "Why is participation in surveys falling?". At the same time, we also asked very broad questions, such as "Do you have any general feedback at RPTU?". The students had the opportunity to use cards and pens to share their own personal opinions and experiences on the metaplan board. In the end, we were able to gain good and new insights.

Were there any opinions and experiences during the campus tour that came as a surprise?

Julia Kleine: When we were developing the questions for the students, there were already thoughts about what the biggest sticking points might be, because we noticed some of them ourselves. Even though the majority of the answers actually confirmed our expectations, it was important for us to feed back our thoughts to the students.

Maike Rech: In some cases, however, there were also topics that we had not previously considered - partly because they do not fall within our usual area of work. Nevertheless, we took the votes on board for feedback in the relevant teams at RPTU. Thanks to the personal exchange, we were able to scrutinize the answers directly, unlike in a digital survey, and discuss individual points in greater depth.

How exactly does this work? How do you process the information provided by the students?

Maike Rech: To give a concrete example in the area of accreditation, the campus tour made it clear that we use a technical vocabulary with abbreviations in quality management that the students are not even familiar with. Thanks to their honest feedback, we have now been given the specific task of adapting our website and documents accordingly.

Julia Kleine: We also asked students why student involvement is declining overall - for example in committees and student councils. The feedback we received was that students are often unaware of what opportunities there are to get actively involved. This is important feedback for us so that we can discuss with other teams at RPTU how we can make participation opportunities within the university more visible.

To what extent can students use their voice to make a concrete contribution to changing university life?

Maike Rech: Surveys such as the campus tour or the first semester survey - which is aimed at those who have enrolled for the first time in the winter semester - offer students the unique opportunity to share their opinions outside their community with other university stakeholders. Whether positive experiences or challenging points.

Julia Kleine: Students don't need to have any prior knowledge, just a willingness to share their own experiences and perhaps new ideas or impulses. Even if they do not immediately see the implementation and thus the success of their opinion sharing, their voice is very important. The development of our university is a generational contract: things as they are today were partly shaped by the opinions of other students from the past. For example, there was feedback from the first-year students who took part in the first semester survey that they needed more time to settle into everyday university life and that they needed orientation after their time at school in order to be introduced to academic work. These voices were one of the reasons for the introduction of the RPTUzero orientation program. So it's quite valuable to share your own opinion, because you can really contribute to making a difference at university - for yourself and for future students.

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Good to know: In the first week of January 2026, the first semester survey on starting and choosing a degree course will take place. The campus tour with a survey of all students on the topic of studying and university life takes place every summer semester as planned. And as you have read, your voice is heard and your opinion can play a key role in shaping university life. So it's worth taking part!