AHEP Development Monthly #52 Innovation with Purpose: Supporting Students in Changing Times
In the current higher education landscape, the old mantra of “doing more with less” has worn thin. As professional services teams shrink and financial pressures mount, the focus has shifted to a more radical question: How do we do less with less?
The answer often lies in technology – the most successful institutions are those auditing their existing digital estates. Before procurement teams look outward for niche solutions to manage governance or elections, they should first look at the robust, high-security platforms they already have in-house to do the heavy lifting. I recently spoke with teams at the University of Hertfordshire (Herts) and the National College of Ireland (NCI) to see how they’ve repurposed their survey platforms to handle the complex, high-stakes task of institutional elections. These are not just stories of software use; they are blueprints for system consolidation and resource efficiency.
The case for “heavy lifting” technology
Institutional elections are notoriously resource-intensive. Historically, this has meant physical ballot boxes, paper notices and hours of manual counting. By moving these processes into a survey-based digital system, institutions are finding they can maintain and even enhance democratic integrity while significantly reducing the administrative burden.
Moving beyond the ballot box
It wasn’t that long ago that “democracy” in a university meant physical labour. Linda Goodwin from Governance Services at Herts recalls that as recently as 2010, they were still using paper ballot boxes and delivering election notices by hand. Today, that manual legacy has been replaced by a process of digital efficiency. The goal was not just to digitise the paper; it was to remove the “legwork” entirely.
University of Hertfordshire: the governance perspective
For the Herts Governance Services team, the move to a survey-led election was about professionalising the staff experience, while protecting precious staff time. By using the evasys platform – a tool already embedded in the university for module feedback – the election process became a seamless extension of existing workflows. By utilising their existing survey platform, the team achieved significant time savings:
Automation of the “grind”: Rather than manually verifying voters, the team pulls data directly from HR records, mirroring the streamlined process used for module evaluations. As Linda Goodwin notes: “I literally can’t imagine how we would manage to run this process without it… running an election of this size any other way would be extremely resource-intensive.”
Template recyclability: The team saves time by copying and editing previous election questionnaires rather than building from scratch.
Automated verification: Results are returned counted and verified, allowing Governance Services to make rapid decisions based on “first past the post” or “ranked choice” scenarios.
Neutrality and trust: A key part of ‘doing less’ is reducing the time spent answering queries about fairness. At Herts, the built-in anonymity of the survey tool means there have been zero queries regarding the security or fairness of the process.
National College of Ireland: the Student Union mandate
For Tre Robert, SU President at NCI, the move to a survey-based system was driven by both financial necessity and a need for professionalisation. He highlighted how technology can provide a high-integrity mandate even when budgets are tight:
Financial efficiency: NCI previously spent between €4,000 and €5,000 on third-party election services. By utilising the college’s existing contract with survey provider, evasys, they were able to conduct high-quality elections and by-elections at zero additional cost.
Higher engagement: The transition to a smoother election process had a direct impact on participation. NCI saw turnout reach approximately 950votes, comfortably exceeding their 10% quorum, which was a challenge in previous years.
Closing the feedback loop: Tre noted that the ability to see real-time response rates allowed the SU to target their campaigning efforts during the final hours of the vote, ensuring that no pocket of the student body was left unheard.
Professionalism and trust: Tre noted that the professionalism of the evasys team and the high-integrity digital audit trail meant “there were no frowns, there were no questions” when results were released.
The “Strategic Advantages”
We frame these as questions any HE practitioner should ask of their current technology:
Can we reduce our ‘Tech Stack’? Using one platform for evaluations, pulse surveys and elections reduces training time and technical debt.
Is the data already vetted? Using an established system ensures that security, GDPR compliance and SSO integration are already managed at an institutional level.
Is it frictionless? Familiarity breeds engagement. If staff and students already know the interface from their weekly feedback cycles, the barrier to democratic participation is significantly lowered. For higher education practitioners, the ‘heavy lifting’ provided by a survey system offers three distinct advantages:
Reduced technical debt: You are not learning a new, niche election software. You are using a tool your team already knows.
Data integrity: Unique, one-time-use links ensure ‘one person, one vote’ without the administrator ever seeing how an individual voted.
Real-time intelligence: Mid-way response rates allow you to pivot your communications strategy on the fly, rather than waiting until the polls close to realise turnout was low.
Let technology carry the load
The success at Hertfordshire and NCI serves as a prompt for all HE professionals: are your current systems doing enough of the heavy lifting? Whether you are looking to save thousands of pounds on external vendors or hundreds of hours in manual counting, as Tre Robert noted, when institutions are looking for the “simplest, most cost-effective solution” the answer is often already in their hands. It’s about demanding more versatility from your digital tools so your staff can focus on the results of the vote, not the mechanics of the ballot.
This is about less with less: using what we already have more intelligently, removing unnecessary complexity and embedding simpler ways of working. In doing so, we can focus our efforts where it matters most, doing fewer things better, with fewer resources, and greater impact.
About evasys
evasys is the leading provider of automated survey and evaluation solutions in higher education. Used by over 60 universities in the UK and Ireland, evasys helps institutions capture the student and staff voice with ease. While primarily known for module and programme evaluation and student feedback surveys, the platform’s robust security and flexible design make it the go-to tool for institutional elections, pulse surveys and other high-stakes feedback.
Learn more at www.evasys.co.uk
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