Review Form Updates August 2023

Mums the word!

At StudentCrowd, we love the invaluable feedback from our dedicated student reviewers. Their input not only helps us serve the 2 million prospective students who seek guidance on making the right decisions annually, but also shapes the data experience for all of you too. With an unwavering commitment to authenticity and accuracy, we're proud to announce some exciting enhancements to our platform.

Introducing new review categories: 

We understand that the perspectives of various stakeholders contribute to the vibrant tapestry of our higher education community. That's why we're thrilled to introduce four new categories for reviews, expanding beyond our esteemed current students. We welcome parents, alumni and prospective students to share their unique insights, enriching the collective knowledge available on our platform. These will appear in the dataset as follows:

1. User_type: Introducing multiple perspectives

To provide a seamless experience while navigating through this wealth of knowledge, we're introducing the "user_type" column to our reviews data. This categorisation will ensure that every review is clearly attributed to its source, making it easier for you to select reviews that resonate with your own requirements, asset assessment or similar. The "user_type" can be one of the following:

★ CURRENT: Current Student

★ PROSPECTIVE: Prospective Student

★ GRADUATE: Graduate/Alumni

★ PARENT: Parent

★ OTHER: Other

2. Student_type: Embracing global views 

We understand that perspectives can vary based on regions and cultural backgrounds. To capture this diversity, we've introduced the "student_type" column. This distinction helps you identify reviews that align with your geographic context. "student_type" can be one of two values:

★ UK: United Kingdom

★ INT: International

Exciting Possibilities Await: 

As we embark on this exciting journey of enriched reviews, we recognise that it might take some time for these new categories to flourish. However, rest assured that our commitment to delivering authentic and valuable insights remains unwavering. With this, initially you will continue to see only ‘Current’ and ‘UK’ reviews in the dataset, once we are confident that our process for authenticating other review categories is working well, you will start to see those new review types flowing through into the data too. Whether you're looking for a student's day-to-day experiences, a parent's viewpoint on campus safety or an alumnus' reflection on career growth, our platform will soon provide a spectrum of perspectives to explore which will in turn be discoverable in our dataset.

It will look a little something like this:

Changes to the dataset will be activated by the first week of September so for anyone working on data dashboards, please make adjustments to your data table columns and headers to ensure seamless integration.

A Glimpse into the Future: 

As we embrace this evolution, you might be wondering how these changes will be reflected on our site. The new categories will be seamlessly integrated into our review structure, adding depth and context to the vibrant narratives shared by our community. However none of the new review categories will affect review scores. You can find more details about our review guidelines here, and details of the new review categories can be found in the latest version of our Data Dictionary.

Should you have any questions or require further assistance, our team is here to support you. Feel free to reach out, and we'll be more than happy to guide you through the latest enhancements.

Stay insightful! Tuely