The National Student Survey and your privacy
Annually, Maastricht University participates in the National Student Survey (Nationale Studenten Enquête, NSE). Nationally, the results of the NSE are used for study information for prospective students, and internally at UM, as input for quality improvements in our education.
All universities in the Netherlands are legally bound to participate and deliver a specified set of data to Studiekeuze123, the conductor of the NSE. For more information about this data set (such as your email address and study programme) and your privacy, please check NSE’s privacy statement. As you can read in NSE’s privacy statement, you have the right to view, correct or remove your personal details. On 14 October 2024, Studiekeuze123 will delete all email addresses.
In addition to the abovementioned data set, Maastricht University provided three extra details: specialization within the programme, the nationality group of the student and ‘first year bachelor’/ ‘other’. For analyses and improvements in the programmes, it is necessary to distinguish the specializations (also called ‘tracks’) in the programmes. For example, in large master’s programmes such as the MSc International Business the results per specialization are more valuable than the overall results of the whole master’s programmes. Nationality group is the second detail provided to Studiekeuze123. UM’s internationalization policy is key to its characteristic profile, and information about the international student population contributes to a large extend to this policy. Note that we use nationality groups and not nationality to prevent any privacy issues. The third detail is ‘first year bachelor’ or ‘other’. When analyzing the results, it is helpful to distinguish the satisfaction of our new, first year bachelor’s students from the opinion of the other students.
After completion of the data collection, Maastricht University receives the results of the survey for our own students. Maastricht University has decided that all students participate anonymously in the questionnaire, meaning that UM will not get data that enable us to relate answers to the questions to individual students. Therefore, the university does not receive data such as your name or email address. In addition, answers from students of a population of less than five students will not be available to UM.
If you want more information on the way UM deals with your NSE-data, please contact rankings@maastrichtuniversity.nl.
Nationality groups
Additionally to the obliged data (such as email address and study programme), UM shares your nationality group with the conductor of the NSE. We distinguish the following nationality groups: Dutch, German, Belgian, EEA-other or non-EEA students. If you are part of a nationality group (within your programme) with less than 5 students, this nationality group will be combined in another nationality group. For example: do you have the Belgian nationality and you follow a master’s programme with only 3 other Belgian students? In that case you, and your fellow Belgian students will be combined with the EEA-other group, to ensure your answers remain anonymous.