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Online Course Evaluation Forms (Faculty Instructions)
View Student Instructions
View sample evaluation
As an institution recognized as a leader in distance delivery and with nearly half our enrollments online, it is essential that we collect assessment data to establish standards of quality in distance delivery. Key among this array of data is the perspective of our students.
Students in all fully online courses will be asked to interact with a course evaluation survey as a condition of enrollment in a UMUC online course. Several notifications have been and will be sent to students, as follows:
* A Course Evaluation notification is located in the Syllabus section of each course (in the Academic Policies section) and on the WebTycho Help & Support web site under "Course Evaluations."
* During the period 21-14 days before the end of the semester, a "pop-up dialog box" will appear each time the student enters the WebTycho classroom; the student will be asked to complete the accompanying online course evaluation for the class. For each question, students will have a "no response" option if they feel they have no information to give, or if they choose not to respond.
* A link to an online letter from Dr. Nicholas H. Allen, Provost and Chief Academic Officer will be available in the "pop-up dialog box".
* If students do not complete the form by the 14th day before the end of the semester, the Class Menu will be replaced with an explanation and a link to the form when they enter the online classroom at that time. Students must complete the form, whether they choose to provide evaluation data or select "no response." If they do not, they will be denied access to their class menu until the form is completed. Interaction with the form will take only a few minutes of their time.
This is a revolutionary era in higher education. The Internet has redefined the university classroom. As the higher education community, including accreditation and regulatory agencies, tries to determine standards of good practice and quality in distance education, UMUC must take the lead to define and exceed minimum thresholds of performance in online education delivery. As a recognized leader in online education, we can not afford to operate without good information about how well we are doing.
For years we have enjoyed a consistently high response rate (approximately 90 percent) with paper and pencil classroom evaluations, administered by a student in each face-to-face class (in Maryland). Unfortunately, the student response rate for online course evaluations has been extremely low, 20 to 30 percent in the first several years. Even now, after pop-up boxes were introduced this past year, the response rate remains just under 50 percent in the online courses. With your support and encouragement to students to complete these online course evaluations, we hope that our return rate will increase to a more acceptable level.
Our goal is to make the procedure a matter of routine for students at UMUC, as has been the paper and pencil process we used in the face-to-face classes in Maryland for years. For those of our faculty teaching fully online courses, we ask for and appreciate your help in getting this change to happen smoothly and quickly in our online culture.
Access to the course evaluation form does not appear in the faculty classroom, as it does for students. If you have further questions about Course Evaluations, or wish ot see a copy, please contact your faculty administrative office.
Thanks for your cooperation and support.
Course Evaluations Questions and Answers
What if the WebTycho technology fails when students try to interact with the form? We do not think this will happen, but if it does, students will only have to communicate with the 24/7 help desk to override the procedure and gain access their classroom.
What about the quality of data? Won't students take their frustrations out on faculty by giving lower evaluations? We do not think this will occur. First, students still have the option not to provide evaluation data by selecting the "no response" button to each question.
Why don't you wait until after the class is over and then make completion of the evaluation a condition of receiving grades? There are major technology problems with implementing that procedure making it not feasible in the near future.
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