ILRT

What We Do - Online Surveys

Why use BOS?

  • No technical knowledge needed
  • Instant feedback on survey results
  • Friendly and prompt support

Find out more

The ILRT is home to the Bristol Online Surveys (BOS) service.

BOS is an easy-to-use service that allows you to develop, deploy, and analyse surveys via the web. No complicated set-up or technical knowledge is required. BOS is used by almost 200 different organisations: approximately 120 Universities plus charities, hospitals, public services and companies.

A unique feature of BOS is that multiple organisations can run the same survey simultaneously to form 'Benchmarking Clubs' to get answers to common questions or issues. Local questions can be added to the core if required and these are excluded from the cross-organisational comparisons.

The following national surveys have been run using BOS:

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey logo

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey (PRES)
PRES is run by the Higher Education Academy, to explore experiences of research degree programmes. It was run as a pilot in the summer of 2006, a full survey was run in March 2007 with up to 40 universities taking part, and over 60 are registered to take part in 2008.

Careers in Research Online Survey logo

Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS)
CROS has run on an annual basis since 2001. CROS's audience is researchers in higher education and it aims to gain feedback on terms of employment, opportunities for training and advancement, career aspirations and the like.

Results from CROS have generated significant change both within institutions and on a national level. Over 50 UK universities have participated in CROS, the most at one time was 47 universities covering some 30,000 researchers.

Athena Survey of Science Engineering and Technology logo

Athena Survey of Science Engineering and Technology (ASSET)
ASSET has run annually since 2002. It seeks to understand the career experiences, perceptions and ambitions of all career scientists. Respondents work in industry, public or private sector research, research and development organisations, higher and further education, the NHS and elsewhere.

For more information please contact:
Pete Walker, Internet Development Manager
peter.walker@bristol.ac.uk, +44 (0)117 331 4395