After three years of struggling to find a way to provide students with the results of faculty evaluations, the ASUO has finally discovered a solution.
Answers to the four University-wide questions contained on every teacher evaluation are currently being placed on-line and are expected to be ready by the end of May in time for fall 2000 registration. A link on Duck Hunt will lead students to the scores their prospective faculty and/or course choices received in previous evaluations.
Professor of geology Jack Rice, who has been helping in this process through the computing center, said it will be impossible to get the results of any given term earlier than two weeks into the next term. Therefore, the information will always be one term behind.
“The ultimate goal is to give students a tool that would take the guesswork out of scheduling for classes,” ASUO University affairs coordinator J.R. Fitzpatrick said.
At the end of each term, students are given the opportunity to critique their professors and courses through evaluation forms. One form asks for written responses and, if signed by the student, goes into the professor’s file. The other form is Scantron with four questions answered by the students.
The ASUO has been trying to get the results of those four questions out to students scheduling for future terms. Originally, the results were printed on paper and distributed in booklets of about 20 pages stapled together. There were, however, several problems associated with that method.
“Last year, it realized the printing of pamphlets … was expensive and consumed a lot of paper,” Rice said.
Anne Leavitt, associate vice president of student affairs, said the booklets were not timely, not useful and filled with errors.
Last year, a student attempted to assemble the data on his personal Web page, Fitzpatrick said, but it was difficult for students to access.
For the last three years, the ASUO has been storing the data from the evaluations on computer disks. The ASUO cleared the movement to a Web-based distribution through the Undergraduate Council, a sub-section of the University Senate comprised of students, faculty and some administration members.
Since then, the ASUO has been working with the Office of Resource Management in Johnson Hall and the Computing Center to complete the task.
Putting the evaluation results on-line will allow students to make better course selections based on the information provided in the evaluations, those involved with the project said, and will prevent them from entering their classes unaware of what lays in store for them.
“The course evaluations were designed to help the teaching effectiveness of the faculty and to give faculty feedback on what students were learning in the course,” Leavitt said. “This is a third use of course evaluations for students.”
Students are not the only segment that will benefit, however. Faculty can use the evaluations in what Fitzpatrick described as a “marketing tool.”
“They can put their best foot forward and show that they do have things to offer,” he said.
Even the administration sees a benefit in publishing the evaluations on-line.
If students are able to make wiser choices about their courses, there will be a lot less adding and dropping of classes during the first week of school, Leavitt explained. If that can happen, it will be much easier for the administration to track which students are in which classes.
The evaluations are only the beginning of what Fitzpatrick hopes will be a “cohesive tool” for students to make course selections. The ASUO is currently working on a proposal that will also connect class Web pages and professor biographies to Duck Hunt. The plan is set to be presented Thursday to the Undergraduate Council.
Teacher, class evaluations should be on-line for fall
Daily Emerald
February 11, 2008
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