The resource required to collect reliable and useful information from university students about their learning experience on a regular basis is substantial. While the results from surveys of university students such as the National Student Survey (NSS) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) are used in benchmarking and in students' decision-making in their choice of courses there remains a question as to whether best use is being made of these data to change the environment in which students learn in attempts to improve the quality of student learning. This presentation uses a survey of research students' experience as an example of how these instruments work how the results can be used to understand the students' experience and how adjustments might be made to the context and to students' perceptions of the context. For research students the learning context includes their experience of supervision of the intellectual climate in their department and the infrastructure set up to support their studies. Does the monitoring of these experiences provide a resource for the enhancement of the learning experience?
