Administrative FAQ Questions
Administrative FAQ Answers
-
In a poll done by Brigham Young University according to the article "Y Puts Teacher Evaluations Online", by Laura Cantera in 22 Nov. 2002,
89% of students surveyed preferred the online format to a paper one.[TOP]
-
No. According to the same article, it takes the average student 3 minutes per
evaluation, or about 15 minutes for ALL of their instructors.[TOP]
-
Research at Murdoch in 2000 by Ballantyne indicates a primary concern for
students has nothing to do with the survey itself, but whether or not the
information is actually used. It was suggested in the study, that a policy
should be made about informing subsequent classes about the changes that were
made as a result of previous evaluations.
The second biggest concern was student confidentiality. According
to Murdoch, students were worried that their comments could be traced back to
them. This concern was also echoed by David L. Robbins, a professor at
Columbia Business School, who said that Columbia had to scrap their in-house
evaluation system due to confidentiality concerns.[TOP]
-
Yes, it is possible to deliver two evaluation forms, one at the midpoint of a
semester and one at the end. The advantage of this system is to provide
instructors with feedback so that they have the ability to adjust their
teaching methodology mid-course if they so deem. [TOP]
-
In a recent pilot, many students said they liked the online system because it
was efficient, convenient, and easy to use. They also mentioned advantages such
as: saves class time; anonymity of responses; not rushed, more time to consider
answers; typing responses is easier and takes less time; students are more apt
to write comments online; students who miss class can still respond; saves
paper; more space to write comments; all instructors can be evaluated, even if
they don't pass out the forms; typed comments are easier for faculty to read;
and no one needs to take the forms to the Testing Center. [TOP]
-
The online student rating form is designed to give instructors feedback on
important areas of teaching and learning. Furthermore, the customized items
provide the opportunity to receive specific feedback targeted at areas that are
unique to an individual course or instructor. Results from both the standard
and customized items may be combined with other information sources and methods
(e.g., peer reviews, student/class interviews, mid-course student feedback) to
give a more complete and accurate picture of teaching. It is important to keep
track of feedback on teaching over time to better understand patterns and the
influence of contextual variables in teaching. Research has shown that teaching
improvement is greatly enhanced when instructors discuss student rating results
with a colleague or faculty development consultant. Teaching can also be
enhanced by utilizing the links to online resources that will be provided with
the online student rating reports. [TOP]
-
Yes. You can create a different evaluation based on each department.
[TOP]
-
Of course! It is completely possible to have one evaluation for your mechanical
engineering lectures, a different one for you mechanical engineering labs,
another completely different evaluation for your electrical engineering
lectures, and another one for your electrical engineering labs if you want!
Obviously, we would recommend that many of the questions asked be the same
throughout the university in order to conduct interdepartmental comparisons, but it is
theoretically possible to have hundreds of different evaluations! [TOP]
-
Yes. In just one click reports can be exported into Microsoft Excel™, Microsoft Word™, or PDF.
[TOP]
-
Yes, they have two options. They can ask a certain question set to all of the
classes they teach, and/or they can ask a question to a specific class (i.e.
"How did you like the music?" [TOP]
-
About one month after the contract we can start the evaluation period. This will
give us plenty of time to make sure that each department is completely happy
with the questions they've chosen, and that everyone is properly trained.
[TOP ]
-
No problem. You can either pick up the phone or log on online and do it
yourself. [TOP]
-
The survey software is extremely flexible in the amount of things you can
specify, but there is a possibility that your school may need something very
specific. If this is the case, there may be a charge for the additional
functionality if you need it by a certain date or right away. An alternative is
just to wait until other customers request the same piece of functionality, and
then it will naturally move up the programming priority list.
The great news is, when a new piece of functionality is added on, all of our
customers benefit! For example, when we built in the ability to export any
chart to Microsoft Excel™, all of our customers benefited from it.[TOP]
-
We look at four factors when we determine our software development projects:
1) Customer requests and related additions
2) Perceived need/usefulness
3) Time
required
4) Whether the customer is willing to pay for it.
1) The first factor is broken into two sub-categories:
- Customer requests is what new functionalities our customers have requested, and
how many of our customers have requested that new piece of functionality. If
all of our customers need something, then that project moves towards the top of
our priority list. If only 1 customer has requested something, big or small,
and none of our other customers have requested it, then it is towards the
bottom of our list.
- Related add-ons deals with what add-ons we can include that will give our customer
amazing benefits or will attract more customers. For instance, before we had
survey software or graphing software, many universities would not consider
hosting their evaluations with our company until we added it, because they felt it was integral to
their needs.
2) Perceived need/usefulness, is a determination by our programmers/marketing
department on how necessary this piece of functionality is in terms of
attracting new customers. For example, when a customer wanted us to have the
ability to export to Excel™, we saw that adding that piece of functionality was
highly desirable as a marketing tool and so it shot up our priority list.
Conversely, if a school wanted us to change a report in a trivial way and no
other college had asked for the change, then we will rank it much lower.
3) Time required, is pretty self explanatory. If the project takes a few hours
it will receive a higher priority than one that takes 2 months.
4) Customers willingness to pay for a new piece of functionality, will easily
move a project from dead last to nearly first. This category was created
because sometimes there are really important things for one customer that
nobody else really cares about.
Our programming staff weighs in all four of these factors to determine our
priority list, and we work on the highest priority projects first.[TOP]
Invest in the future with the innovations of today.
Research
- Ballantyne, C. S. (2000). Why survey online? A practical look at issues in the use of the Internet for surveys in higher education. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, Honolulu, November 2000.