1. Institutional Course Evaluation Solution
Faculty Senate Executive Committee
September 12, 2012
Carol VanZile-Tamsen, Ph.D.; Associate Director, Office of University Accreditation and Assessment
Joseph Mantione, Assistant Vice Provost, Institutional Analysis

2. Currently at UB:
Five different course evaluation solutions are used across the 12 units
Additional systems used by academic support units delivering instruction

3. Currently at UB:
In some areas, preparation of evaluation forms for course offerings is an administrative nightmare
Students enrolled in courses offered by different units do not have a single place in which they evaluate all of their courses
In many areas, response rates are too low for any meaningful conclusions to be drawn

4. Currently at UB:

5. ConnectEdu in the College of Arts and Sciences
UBCATS - “University at Buffalo Course and Teacher Survey” - A web-based software application that allows students to anonymously evaluate courses and instructors online.
Data Upload Process
Upload of Course, Enrollment, Faculty, Student, TA, and Supplemental Instructor tables to the site
Fall 2011
71,658 Student Enrollment Records
17,095 Student Import Records
2,350 Course Import Records
1,212 Faculty / Department Records
396 Teaching Assistants Records
Departmental Access Process (Dept. Chair, Assistants)
Set up the survey – keep it open for a month – close it two days after the last day of final exams.

6. ConnectEdu in the College of Arts and Sciences
Communication Process
Place student announcement and survey link on myUB
Send s (17,078 initial s) to Students to:
Inform them that the evaluation site is open
Invite them to log in and do the evaluation).
Send s (1,137 initial s) to Faculty to:
Inform them that the survey is open
Ask them to monitor response rates (real time)
Remind their students to do the evaluation
Send follow-up weekly s/reminders to students with incomplete surveys
(15,719, 14,072, 12,652, 11,733 s in Fall’11)
Send final to Faculty at the close of the survey to let them know that they can log in and access the evaluation results the day after web grading closes for the semester.
Reporting Process
Distribute our own custom Summary Reports to Dept. Chair and Director of Graduate Studies.

7. ConnectEdu in the College of Arts and Sciences
UBCATS Challenges
1 Data upload- creation of new HUB querying tools
2. Undeliverable s – students not using/checking their UB
3. Lack of Summary Reports
4. Departmental buy in – lack of ownership
5. Limited technical support
6. Confusion among students – not all UB courses are part of UBCATS
7. I can’t log in!
8. Reports are not accessible to students
9. Response rate
10. Survey fatigue
To some degree, the other 11 schools, Athletics, MFC and EOC all do the same thing and incur the same PSR costs.
They also have the same challenges.

8. The Benefit of A Single Solution:
Uniformity in Administration leading to greater efficiency and more reliable results
Greater transparency for students and one-stop evaluations may encourage greater response rates
Availability of Data and Reports for Assessment Purposes:
Faculty review and development
Program Review
Accreditation Reporting

9. Course Evaluation Items:
For comparability of ratings across courses and instructors, a core of common questions could be useful:
3-5 questions
These would be developed jointly by Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Associate Deans Council
Beyond that, we would promote the greatest flexibility possible for units in selecting questions

10. Vendors already on campus
Campuslabs (cost proposal submitted)
ConnectEdu (cost proposal submitted)
Digital Measures
E*Value
SmartEvals
*Blackboard (no course eval solution at present)

11. Conclusions
Regardless of platform chosen, there are many good reasons to have an institutional course evaluation system
We hope you will consider data use and reporting reasons, as well as fiscal reasons, as you consider this issue.