Confidential Student Feedback Evaluation Systems in Higher Education: A Review of Privacy Challenges and Design Imperatives

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@article{1719844,
      author = {Oluwaferanmi Adejuwon, Wilson Sakpere},
      title = {Confidential Student Feedback Evaluation Systems in Higher Education: A Review of Privacy Challenges and Design Imperatives},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {10},
      number = {1},
      pages = {3223-3231},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1719844.pdf},
      abstract = {Student feedback evaluation systems have become indispensable instruments for quality assurance in higher education institutions across Africa and beyond. However, the effectiveness of these systems is significantly constrained by persistent privacy challenges, particularly the exposure of student identity credentials, which discourages candid participation and undermines data integrity. This paper presents a narrative review of literature examining privacy challenges in student feedback evaluation systems, with emphasis on African and Nigerian higher education contexts. Drawing on evidence from peer-reviewed journals, institutional reports, and empirical studies published between 2023 and 2025, the review critically examines the conceptual foundations of feedback systems, the typology of feedback mechanisms, the role of confidentiality in survey response quality, and the imperatives for stakeholder-sensitive system design. Findings reveal that anonymity assurance significantly enhances response quality, that most existing feedback platforms are poorly designed for the African institutional context, and that a shift toward cryptographic privacy-preserving architectures is both feasible and urgent. The review concludes with a framework of design imperatives tailored to Nigerian and African higher education institutions, calling for participatory system development, context-specific privacy policies, and institutional accountability structures.},
      keywords = {Student Feedback Evaluation, Confidentiality, Higher Education, Nigeria, Africa, Information Systems, Privacy-Preserving Design, Quality Assurance},
      month = {July},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV10I1-1719844}
  }