It’s no exaggeration to say that established student satisfaction ratings, like the yearly Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College rankings, have become compulsory reading for all university administrators and faculty. Yet these surveys are not without their critics.

Are they reliable barometers of teaching quality and academic merit, or are they really measuring a different set of variables all together, such as student enjoyment due to class leniency? And can a clear understanding of the quality of student experience and the true value of their academic pursuits be gathered in one annual survey? Critics suggest that it can’t, and that a more agile and responsive approach to harvesting student feedback is sorely needed...