Service closure FAQs

As part of our commitment to delivering the greatest value to our members, we regularly evaluate how our resources are allocated across services.

The decision to retire the service followed a strategic review based on usage trends and resource priorities – declining use meant that the service is no longer financially viable.

The service will operate as normal until 31 July 2026, after which it will be retired.

The service will continue to run as usual until this date, with the same level of support. Your relationship manager and the DEI and customer success teams will continue to provide support during this process. Please contact help@jisc.ac.uk if you require support.

When the DEI service is retired on 31 July 2026, you will have until midday on 4 September 2026 to download your data.

After this point, all survey data will be deleted and will no longer be accessible through the Digital Experience Insights dashboards on Online Surveys.

Key dates:

• 31 July 2026: DEI contracts with existing customers end but customers may continue to access the data within Online Surveys for 35 days.
• 4 September 2026: Customer access is removed, and survey data will no longer be accessible to members who subscribed to the service. All DEI User Accounts and survey data will be deleted.
• 4 September 2026 – 4 December 2026: Data is held in Online Surveys back-ups for 3 months in case of exceptional circumstances but will NOT be retrievable for individual user requests from this point as would require a full restore.

Data can be exported from the Analyse area of your copy of the survey. A full guide to downloading data is available here: https://onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/helpandsupport/downloading-your-responses/.

It is recommended to download the csv coded version (plus key files) to maximise re-use in other programs. The csv uncoded and xlsx formats give you a more human readable version of the data.

Please let us know by completing this form when you have downloaded all the data you wish to keep.

Benchmarking data can be accessed 2-3 days after the close of the survey via Online Surveys. Student/learner benchmarking data was launched in May 2026. Staff data will be launched in July 2026.

Within Online Surveys, go to the Analyse area of your survey (e.g. HE student, FE learner, teaching staff), and find the benchmarking tab along the top. There you can select the available benchmarking group(s).

So that you can continue to capture and analyse digital experience data, we will be making the existing question sets available to those with Online Surveys project or organisation level subscriptions. The question sets will be self-service, can be customised to meet your specific needs, and will be included within the forthcoming Online Surveys ‘templates’ area, alongside other useful survey templates for data collection within your organisation. Keep an eye on our product updates for information on these templates.

We will offer an expression of interest form for Online Surveys subscribers interested in continuing to access top-level benchmarking data for staff and student surveys for an additional fee.

These two measures are designed to address the main challenges raised by members and mean you can continue to access the insight you value beyond the life of the current service.

More information on this service is available on our website.

Existing DEI templates will be made available to Online Surveys subscribers via the new 'templates' of area in due course. These will not be updated for 2026/7. The launch of templates will be announced on our product updates page. (https://onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/product-updates/).

DEI question sets are made available under the Creative Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND, allowing for re-use under certain conditions. Details as to what is permitted are available in the published legal code for this licence.

You may also be interested in joining Jisc's LinkedIn Data Community where you will have an opportunity to connect with other data professionals and enthusiasts who have a passion for HE and FE data, for sharing experiences and collaborating to solve common problems.

We also recommend that you talk to your Relationship Manager to discuss your wider data needs.

Jisc will clarify access arrangements closer to retirement date.

Reports will continue to be accessible via the Jisc repository https://repository.jisc.ac.uk/. Online Surveys dashboards will no longer be accessible after 4 September 2026, so you should download your organisational data before then.

As our commitment to the current contract, we will be providing a reporting analysis of the 2025/26 survey. We will be advising on timelines in due course along with guidance on data access and export options before the services closes.