The University is activating the new online teacher evaluation system for the first time this Sunday at midnight, and University officials are encouraging all students to log on and provide input on their professors.
Director of the University Planning Office Karen Helm said from now on all evaluations will be completed online, but students might be asked to complete paper evaluations in some courses.
“The online process includes all courses on campus and all Distance Education courses,” Helm said. “There are some departments that may issue some additional questions on paper though.”
Helm said the University plans to eliminate all need for paper evaluations by the fall semester.
“The University has issued a bank of questions they want answered, and that is what we are putting online,” Helm said. “Starting this fall we will be adding additional features so teachers can input more questions they want answered.”
According to Helm, online evaluations cut down on costs and also provide more accurate information.
“Standardized paper evaluations were more expensive, and the quality of data gathered was not to the level we would like,” Helm said.
She said in the past students might have been confused by this kind of Internet-based survey, but the current generation finds it easier to deal with.
“Today people are much more comfortable using the Web for a process like this,” Helm said.
Helm said because it is up to the students to complete these evaluations on their own time, there could potentially be a drop in the rate of response.
“The downside is that if everyone is not committed to make this work, the response rate could drop,” Helm said. “If the response rate falls too low, the data could become useless.”
Tiffany Wong, a sophomore in biological sciences, said the concept behind these evaluations makes sense to her, but the University will have trouble getting students to participate in the process.
“It’s a better idea because you can do it faster, but I think students are less likely to fill it out now that its online and the teacher isn’t handing them out and collecting them at the end of class,” Wong said
Jiwei Zhu. a sophomore in biological sciences, expressed similar sentiments and said students would only participate if they were offered a tangible incentive.
“I don’t think many students will fill out an online evaluation unless they are given an incentive like extra credit in their course,” Zhu said. “Paper evaluations would be better because with in-class surveys you feel more obligated to fill it out.”
Helms said the University has considered several methods to insure student involvement and has found encouragement and communication to be the most effective option.
“The evaluations are very important because they are the only feedback a faculty member gets from the students about how they have run the class,” Helm said.
