Students registering for classes for the upcoming term may not know it, but they can see what their fellow peers thought of professors and classes before signing up.
The University’s online course evaluation system on DuckWeb now allows students to see how others rated a particular class or professor rather than wading through pages of comments on Web sites such as Rate My Professor.
To reach the search function, students sign onto DuckWeb and click on the course evaluations button. A “class search” button in the upper-right-hand corner brings them to the search form. Once there, students can search by class or professor and are shown the average score, from one to five where five is the best, based on a variety of questions.
Although the system doesn’t allow students to rate a professor’s attractiveness as on Rate my Professor, it does include other useful criteria for judgement such as, “How effective was the instructor’s use of class time?” and “How available was the instructor for communication outside of class?”
The online course evaluation system was introduced as a pilot program in the 2007-08 school year. Laura Wisecaver, the assistant registrar for course evaluations, said the motivation behind moving the system online was to make it more streamlined and efficient.
“The paper system was really labor intensive,” Wisecaver said. “It killed a lot of trees, and the controls over collecting and processing were uneven across campus.”
Vice Provost for Budget and Planning Brad Shelton said the online system probably saves about $100,000 a year.
The new system also gets more results. Wisecaver said an average 70 percent of students fill out evaluations with the online system. In spring term of 2008, she said students completed 91,000 course evaluations. By contrast, she said, only 32,000 paper evaluation forms were printed in winter term of 2007. The online evaluation system, unlike its past print system, is optional, but students who don’t fill out their course evaluations have their grades held for longer than usual by the registrar’s office — a not-so-subtle motivation. But Wisecaver said complaints have been few, and most students don’t seem bothered by it.
“It’s better than having them come into the classroom, and you don’t have to do the evaluations if you don’t want to,” said University student Melissa Randich. “But it’s annoying if you forget and they hold your grades.”
Others were less pleased.
“I’ve never done the course evaluations, and I always get my grades held,” student Briony Walker said. “They always do them around finals, and that’s when you don’t have time to mess with other stuff.”
University physics professor J. David Cohen said he was still undecided about the new online system. He said the online responses lacked some of the depth of the previous system.
“The responses seemed better with paper,” he said. “They seemed more thoughtful.”
The overwhelming majority of students have not heard about the search option, even in the ASUO, but most were enthusiastic when told about it, such as ASUO Programs Administrator Conrad Hulen.
“That’s sweet,” he said.
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