Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Graduate surveys yield answers regarding

• what fields of work and occupations graduates from LUH end up in,
• what follows on after a Bachelor’s degree,
• how the transition from university into work takes place,
• what competencies are gained during study and which ones are expected in work,
• whether the occupation suits the content of study,
• how income and working hours develop
• and how graduates retrospectively evaluate their studies.

The information of and about graduates is a central source of data allowing the study conditions to be adjusted to fit the various challenges the current and future students are confronted with.

The results are provided to the administration, the subject areas and the central facilities both in the form of (subject-specific) result reports and in the form of lectures. They are excellently suited to qualitatively extending or adjusting the University’s diverse offer:

• use of the results regarding study and career progressions in study advice and by the careers service
• development of a goal-oriented and subject-area-specific range of key competencies
• checking competency acquisition and the professional activity of graduates in relation to the subject areas
• use of the results in the course of accreditation and reaccreditation of study programmes

There are many good reasons for you to take part in the graduate survey: alongside the opportunity to reflect on your own study experiences, you will be making an important contribution to the improvement

• of the range of studies and study conditions,
• of the practical and career orientation of study,
• of the advice and service provision by the University.

Future generations of students and Leibniz University Hannover are grateful to you.

The data becomes part of the quality development for study and teaching at Leibniz University Hannover. To this end, the results are prepared both in the form of (subject-specific) result reports and in the form of talks for the university administration, the subject areas and the central facilities, and are discussed in various committees.

The survey data of Leibniz University Hannover is also evaluated by ISTAT together with that of other German universities and published in a research report.

You can find the university-wide results of the graduate surveys on “survey results” page.

If you are interested in differentiated results, please get in touch with the staff member responsible for the graduate survey:

Agnieszka Dudzinska, M. A.
Tel. +49 511 762 14450
email: dudzinska@zqs.uni-hannover.de.

The addresses of graduates at the time of completion of study are collected and stored by the University in electronic form on the basis of the statute on the collection and processing of personal data. As some graduates may have changed addresses a year after the completion of study, if necessary, the addresses are updated in the course of an enquiry (e.g., with the aid of citizen registration offices or the Internet).

Only graduates of a specific graduating year at Leibniz University Hannover can take part, excluding doctorates and certificate degrees. This means that those who graduated in the winter or summer semester of a given year will be invited to participate in October of the following year.

Yes, definitely! Leibniz University Hannover not only researches the transition of graduates into careers but also whether they continue study or engage in other activities after their studies. The documentation of the progress of study of Bachelor’s graduates, doctoral candidates or students in their second degrees helps today’s students in deciding which path they themselves wish to take. Life phases outside of work or study are also an important component of this documentation. Only a realistic picture of the diversity of paths to take after study will help to sustainably improve study conditions and the quality of Leibniz University Hannover’s teaching! Thanks to a filtering process, the survey is notably shorter for graduates who are not yet in work.

The survey takes place online only. To take part, enter your personal access code, which was sent to you by post or email, in the field in the online questionnaire. The questionnaire is also available in English.

Each graduate will receive a randomly generated access code that allows them to participate in the study. This ensures that only individuals belonging to the target group can take part in the survey. In addition, the access code can be used to interrupt answering the questions at any time and continue them at a later point. To do so, you simply have to register again with the access code.

You can correct your answers at any time while the survey is online. Only the last entry for each question is stored in the database.

If the survey is already closed and the questionnaire is no longer accessible online, there is no technical infrastructure for an individual case presentation – evaluations at the individual case level are not provided for. In this case, please contact ISTAT. The data protection coordinator at ISTAT is Dirk Reifenberg:

ISTAT – Institut für angewandte Statistik GmbH
Universitätsplatz 12
34127 Kassel

phone: + 49 561 953 796 81
email: datenschutz@istat.de

The survey data that ISTAT transmits to Leibniz University Hannover is an anonymous data set – it is therefore no longer possible to delete individual cases after the survey data has been transmitted.

You can take a break from the survey at any time. If you sign in again using the code, the answers you have already given will be retained in the questionnaire.

The Kassel Institute for Applied Statistics (ISTAT) has coordinated the joint scientific project for graduate surveys (KOAB) since 2017. As part of the project, between 50 and 60 German universities survey their graduates. ISTAT has emerged from the International Centre for Higher Education Research in Kassel (INCHER), which coordinated the project up to 2017.

As part of this project, ISTAT coordinates central tasks, creates the questionnaires, gives support with the execution of the survey and offers workshops. Furthermore, ISTAT also creates a comparison data set from the results given by the graduates of Leibniz University Hannover and other participating universities. Using this, the effect of study conditions and offers on the paths taken in later life and career success are analysed.

• First, the data is saved on an ISTAT server. At the end of the questionnaire, it is transferred via an encrypted connection to a different ISTAT server. There you will have the opportunity of submitting your email address if you want to take part in a follow-up survey carried out by ISTAT.
• After this, you will be directed to a Leibniz University Hannover server and you will be asked whether you wish to take part in the prize draw. If you answer “yes” to this question you will be asked to enter your address data.
• This address data will not be saved with the survey data on an ISTAT server but on a Leibniz University Hannover server.
• The address data is never saved in the same file as survey data and is never linked to it. In this way, the survey remains completely anonymous.
• The survey data entered is processed and statistically evaluated by ISTAT. In addition, every participating university receives the anonymised survey data for its own evaluation.
• The ZQS uses the addresses exclusively for purposes within the project (invitation to and reminders about the survey, getting in contact with the prize winners).
• All data is always sent over encrypted connections!

The survey data (i.e. your  responses in the survey itself) are stored strictly separately from the personal data (address data), meaning your responses are never linked to personal information such as your name or address.

All results are published in aggregated form and therefore do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about individual persons. Results with very small sample sizes are not published.
Free text responses in the survey will be forwarded to those responsible for the course of study in their original form. Names and places will be anonymized. Nevertheless, we point out before these questions that we will pass on the free text responses in their original form to those responsible for the course of study without editing them, and that you should refrain from making comments that could lead to conclusions about yourself or other individuals.

The results are only ever shown in aggregated form and care is always taken to ensure that individuals cannot be identified. If, for example, there is only one female graduate in a study programme, the results for this programme will never be published broken down by gender.

All data is encrypted for transfer. The personal access code also contributes to security. Every access code is only assigned once and authorises access to fill out the questionnaire for a fixed period. You can find more details under data protection information.

For further questions, please get in touch with the ZQS/Quality Assurance’s contact for the Graduate Survey:

Agnieszka Dudzinska, M. A.
Tel. +49 511 762 14450
email: dudzinska@zqs.uni-hannover.de.