Online course evaluations to be the norm

Beginning this fall, students can expect to find all of their course evaluations online, an effort initiated more than 10 years ago.

How to get students interested in filling them out is still a question for administrators.

The plan was originated in the hope of saving time and money while allowing departments more flexibility in selecting questions and analyzing data. But low participation rates in trials of the system have created questions about how effective an online system would be for evaluating a professor’s performance.

“There are a lot of questions that go into developing such a system,” said Jan Yopp, a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and a member of the committee working to implement the program.

UNC worked out a contract last year in time for a pilot program to test the system at the end of the fall semester.

Classes in the School of Nursing, Department of Health Policy and Management and the First Year Seminar program were selected to participate in the pilot in order to keep the test small, although other departments expressed interest in participating, said Lynn Williford, assistant provost for institutional research and assessment.

Reactions to the pilot were mixed.

Of the students in the courses who participated in the pilot program, 46 percent completed evaluations, Williford said. Because it took longer than expected to invite students to complete evaluations online, some professors chose to administer the paper versions of the survey instead. Their classes were still counted in the online total, bringing down the participation rate.

“Really, we had a real range of participation levels,” Williford said. “We had some classes where everyone participated.”

The typical response rate for paper evaluations is about 90 percent, Yopp said.

A further concern is that the voluntary online evaluations won’t accurately capture student opinion.

“The fact is that you’re going to hear from those who really love you and probably those who hate you,” Yopp said. “But you’re not going to hear from the student who thought, ‘That was a pretty good class. I learned what I needed to learn.’

“Faculty want to know what a wide cross section of students think.”

The data information company Digital Measures will provide and maintain the software, called Course Response.

Unlike paper evaluations, which are completed in class, online evaluations are supposed to be completed outside the classroom.

Justin Webb, a junior history major, filled out an online evaluation for a class in the School of Education.

“I didn’t think it was that bad,” he said. “But if they are all online, students might not do them because they don’t have to.”

The committee struggled with a way to motivate students to complete the evaluations and will continue to debate the problem as the test run continues.

One proposal would prevent students from getting a grade unless they at least access the link to the evaluation, regardless of whether they complete it. Another would not allow students to view other results posted online until they completed their evaluations.

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.