Next semester, students will fill out course evaluations online through their electronic portfolios instead of on paper forms in class. This change follows a year of pilot studies prompted by the implementation of similar systems at several of the University’s peer institutions. The new evaluations should streamline the evaluation process, reduce waste and increase student participation.

According to Associate Provost of Academic Affairs Paula Lawson, the new evaluations are a much-needed change.

“The paper system doesn’t work that well,” she said.

The current system has several flaws that reduce the number of submitted forms that can be used to evaluate teachers. Absences from class may lower the number of responses, and there have been cases when the envelope containing course evaluations was not returned to North College.

“Each year one or two packets wouldn’t make it back,” said Sam Ruth ’08, student chair of the Educational Policy Committee (EPC).

The carbon copy evaluations involve both extra paper and extra time. An employee has to enter each encircled number into a database, and each evaluation packet is manually separated into three separate sheets. The front copy is kept on file, the second is given to the professor and the third is thrown away.

“It uses a lot of paper,” Lawson said. “We’re running out of space. We even had to rent some storage out.”

The transition from paper to electronic evaluations will have several benefits relative to the current system. Pilot studies conducted in the fall of 2007 and in the spring of 2008 both showed an increased response rate and length.

“In general, people wrote more using the online version,” Ruth said.

The electronic versions will also be more convenient for professors. The portion of the evaluation that professors receive is often illegible, because it is a carbon copy. Not only will legibility no longer be an issue, but anonymity will also be greatly increased. While with the paper system a professor might be able to match a student’s handwriting to that on an evaluation form, this will not be possible with typed text.

One change to the evaluation process with a direct effect on students is that final grades will not be available online until students submit evaluations for all the courses they attended during the semester. The University chose this approach in response to results from pilot tests showing that when grades were withheld the response rate was above 90 percent, much higher than when they were not.

“Second semester we took away that stipulation and the response rate fell dramatically,” Ruth said. “We felt it was a non-inflammatory stipulation.”

University faculty also took part in the creation of the online evaluations. Junior faculty expressed their fear that any changes to the evaluations, which play an important role in considering a professor for tenure, would affect future tenure decisions. However, an agreement was reached, under which the ratings would be closely monitored to ensure parity.

Faculty also suggested limiting the hours students could fill out the evaluations to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to counter the possibility of a student writing the evaluations while drunk late at night. The suggestion was considered but will not be applied.

“We thought it was an unnecessarily strict way of setting things up,” Ruth said.

Ruth added that the electronic course evaluations are still subject to reconsideration.