Online Course Evaluations can save colleges and universities a tremendous amount of money. Research done by Online Course Evaluations estimate that the average school will save 20% when switching from paper evaluations to online evaluations in the first year alone. The second year and every year thereafter, each school will save an average of 60% (1) (2).

To quote David Smalley, Manager of Institutional Research at Edgewood College:
"Years ago, we were paying an outside company to do our 15-item instructor evaluations, and it was quite expensive in terms of time and money. Once we switched to Online Course Evaluations, we started saving 40% every year. It wasn't just theoretical money either, we literally reduced our budget line for evaluations by $4,000. The real savings (if you add in the time it freed me up to do my job) was probably double".

In 1999, Kronholm, Wisher, Curnow, and Poker conducted a comprehensive study on this issue, comparing production, distribution, monitoring, scanning, and analysis preparation costs for both paper-based and Web-based evaluations of a distance-learning course. According to their study, delivering a 22-item paper-based evaluation costs over $1.00 per evaluation (assuming labor costs are $15 per hour)(1).

They took into account: paper and pencil costs, mailing costs, wasted class time, instructor salaries, scanning costs, and equipment depreciation costs.

They did NOT take into account:

1. The price associated with instructors not knowing their results until months after the class ends. Numerous studies show that people do not learn quickly when there is a huge lag between the time they perform an action and when feedback is received.
2. The fact that the length, thoughtfulness and quality of student feedback(1) is lower compared to online evaluations.
3. Any benefit from mid-term evaluations that the school would have run.

All this means that even if a university did their evaluations 4 times more efficiently than Kronholm et al. suggest, a university with 10,000 students spends over $50,000 per year using paper evaluations alone!

We can do it for a fraction of that cost, giving you a huge cost savings! By processing your evaluations through Online Course Evaluations, by the second year, this university would have saved over $30,000 per year - a 60% savings!

1. With paper evaluations, professors need to wait until well after the semester ends to get results. This means they typically have to wait several months before they can find out how they are doing.
2. It is incredibly difficult to compare one professor's scores against another's using paper evaluations. There are piles of paper evaluations to sift through, and class by class comparisons take a great deal of time.
3. After all of the data is compiled, administrators only know general areas of concern with each professor. (e.g., Professor Smith's students are dissatisfied with the use of classroom technology.)
4. When students use paper evaluations, they tend to skew their answers towards the better end of the spectrum, making it difficult for professors to judge how they are doing. They also tend to rush through the form, in a hurry to leave the classroom.
5. Students typically do not see the results of evaluations, and they cannot use evaluations as a way to select future classes. They are also unable to see if a particular course is consistently rated low regardless of who teaches it.

1. Kronholm, E. A., Wisher, R. A., Curnow, C. K., & Poker, F. (1999). The transformation of a distance learning training enterprise to an Internet base: From advertising to evaluation. Paper presented at the Northern Arizona University NAU/Web99 Conference, Flagstaff, AZ.
2. Hmieleski K. & Champagne, M.V. (September/October, 2000).
   Plugging into course evaluation. The Technology Source
   from http://technologysource.org/article/plugging_in_to_course_evaluation/