A data-driven, independent research laboratory

ÜniAR was founded in 2016 with the motto "no one evaluates a university better than its own students". That same year we conducted the first Türkiye University Satisfaction Survey (TÜMA), today the most comprehensive student experience study in Türkiye.

For more than a decade since, we have continuously provided data, insight and expertise to Türkiye's higher education stakeholders — students, graduates, families, university administrations, researchers and policymakers.

The validity of our path was confirmed at the institutional level over time: in 2024 the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) began officially measuring student satisfaction with the Türkiye University Experience Survey (TÜDA). The fact that YÖK's study produced results supporting TÜMA, with rankings similar to TÜMA-2024, allowed the reliability of our method and data to be tested against an independent source.

2026 was a turning point for ÜniAR. We expanded our research family with TÜMA-Alan and TÜMA-Mezun, measuring student satisfaction at the academic-field level and the university experience from a post-graduation perspective for the first time. The same year we reached our largest dataset to date: 65,000 students and 37,000 graduates.

TÜMA — Türkiye University Satisfaction Survey (annual, since 2016)

Our flagship. Conducted every year among formal undergraduate students in Türkiye. It is an independent evaluation model developed for the Turkish higher education system, drawing on the core principles of international student satisfaction surveys such as NSSE (US), NSS (UK) and SES (Australia). Students evaluate their universities across six satisfaction domains:

• Learning Experience — course content, objectivity of assessment, feedback from instructors, how well courses encourage learning
• Campus Life — campus life, social and cultural opportunities, safety, dining and health services, transport, accommodation
• Academic Support — advising and guidance, advisers' availability, information about internships and jobs
• Institutional Management — student affairs, access to administrators, participation in decisions, support for student rights
• Learning Resources — library, electronic resources, laboratories, study spaces, wireless internet, research support
• Career Development — career centre services, certificate programmes, job-finding and career-planning support

Each domain is scored 10–100 and the overall satisfaction score 60–600; universities are classified into satisfaction levels from A+ to FF.

TÜMA-Alan — Field/Programme-Based Satisfaction Survey (first wave 2026)

Even within the same university, the student experience differs markedly across fields — and prospective students usually choose a programme, not a university. TÜMA-Alan makes satisfaction visible at the academic-field (programme-group) level. It draws on the same student data as TÜMA; results are reported as 1 overall indicator + 4 dimensions (Learning Experience, Curriculum Quality, Academic Support, Career Value) across nine field groups: Education Sciences/Teaching, Science & Life Sciences, Law, Business & Economics, Engineering, Psychology, Art-Architecture-Design, Social Sciences, and Medicine & Health Sciences.

TÜMA-Mezun — Graduate Satisfaction Survey (first wave 2026)

The value of a university education should be measured not only during studies but after graduation. TÜMA-Mezun is based on 2016–2025 graduates retrospectively evaluating their education in light of their work and career experience. Alongside Overall Satisfaction, six graduate dimensions are reported: Career Value, Skill Gain, Career Impact, Alumni Bond, Alumni Services and Recommendation. Its first wave reached data from 37,000 graduates.

TÜMA-Mezun Alan (first wave 2026)

The field-based complement of TÜMA-Mezun. It makes graduate satisfaction comparable across universities within the same nine academic field groups, using the Overall Satisfaction score. The aim is not to pit disciplines against each other but to reveal institutional differences within the same field.

ÖDÜŞ — Student-Friendly University Cities

A city study evaluating the quality of student life across all 81 provinces.

Each year, based on the Rector Performance Evaluation Scale administered within TÜMA, the ÜniAR Outstanding Performance Awards (Gold, Silver and Bronze) are presented to rectors showing outstanding performance at their universities. These awards aim to make student-centred management visible and to encourage it.

Data collected to date — independent, representative and reproducible.

Our rankings rest not on institutional self-reporting but on students' and graduates' direct satisfaction assessments, produced through a rigorous scientific process:

• Quota sampling: The aim is not to reach the most students but to build a reliable sample that represents the population. Quotas are set per university by gender and faculty/programme distribution at a 95% confidence level and 5% margin of error; the sampling plan is renewed each period from current YÖK statistics. Where quotas cannot be fully met, post-stratification weighting is applied — balancing representativeness without changing the scores students gave.
• A valid, reliable scale: Developed in 2016 through a literature review, student focus groups and expert panels, the Student Satisfaction Questionnaire consists of 60 items on a 10-point Likert scale measuring six satisfaction domains.
• Data quality and cleaning: Personal survey participation IDs, session data, control questions and response times are monitored. Surveys completed unusually quickly, inconsistent answers, outliers and duplicates are excluded; only records meeting the quality criteria enter the final analyses.
• No normalisation: No statistical normalisation is applied to scores. What is measured is the student's satisfaction statement itself, not a structural indicator; representativeness is secured at the sampling stage, and scores are preserved as given.
• Ethics, data protection and independence: Participation is voluntary and based on informed consent. Personal data is processed under KVKK and anonymised in analyses; only authorised researchers access raw data. Universities cannot interfere with data collection, analysis, scoring or ranking.
• Transparency and correction: Methods, sampling, scoring and evaluation criteria are shared openly. If a material error is found after reporting, only the affected results are corrected, with the scope and rationale disclosed publicly.

The international version of TÜMA — launching in October 2026. SCOPE, the most concrete product of our 2024 decision to go international, will be published in October 2026.

SCOPE is not merely a dashboard reporting universities' multidimensional indicators such as learning quality, student experience, graduate outcomes and teaching reputation. It is an algorithmic ranking engine and decision-support platform producing globally comparable scores, running the full cycle of data validation → integration → modelling → explainable scoring → scenario analysis.

With this architecture, SCOPE:

• Makes universities from different countries comparable within a common, transparent scoring framework,
• Sets out how each score is produced, in an explainable way,
• Offers university administrations and policymakers scenario analyses answering "how would our position change if this indicator improved?",
• Carries ÜniAR's decade-plus of student and graduate data into the global higher education ecosystem.

Whether you are a student choosing a university, an administrator looking to improve your institution, or a researcher working on higher education — our data and our team are with you.