printable versionOffice of the Registrar launches online evaluations for courses in four schools
Students now can go online to evaluate courses offered through four of the university's seven schools.
Today, the Registrar's Office launched an Axess-based evaluation system, which allows students to critique courses in the School of Humanities and Sciences, School of Education, School of Earth Sciences and School of Engineering.
Course evaluations must be completed by Dec. 17. Faculty members and instructors can read them beginning Dec. 22.
The Registrar's Office will give away $15 worth of iTunes downloads to each of 50 randomly selected students who complete the online evaluations. In addition, students who submit all of their evaluations by Dec. 17 will be able to see their grades on Axess as soon as faculty submit them. Students who do not complete their course evaluations by that date will not be able to see their grades until Jan. 2. Neither faculty nor employees of the Registrar's Office have access to data that identify students who submit evaluations.
The new evaluation process is the result of a yearlong project by the Registrar's Office to replace an optical-scanner system, which consumed more than 50,000 paper forms each quarter.
"It was highly inefficient and took a great deal of time and effort to administer," said Roger Printup, registrar and associate vice provost for student affairs. "In addition, the process did not allow students who missed class on the day course evaluations were distributed to express their opinions about the class."
Lecture and seminar courses that enroll at least three students are subject to evaluation. Discussion sections, except for those in the School of Engineering, also are subject to evaluation. (Independent study and activity courses are not evaluated.)
Student evaluations are an important component of the academic process at the university, Printup said. Faculty members and instructors use the evaluations to make improvements to their courses and to determine which teaching methods are successful. Departments use the evaluations to make decisions about future course offerings.
The Registrar's Office developed the evaluation system in partnership with CollegeNet, a software firm in the field of higher education. The system uses servers at CollegeNet's headquarters in Portland, Ore.
The School of Law, Graduate School of Business and School of Medicine have separate systems for evaluating courses.