1. Our Experience with Online Student Feedback Adel Abunawass Will Lloyd Edwin Rudolph Department of Computer Science State University of West Georgia {adel,wlloyd,erudolph}@westga.edu http://adel.cs.westga.edu/acmmidsoutheast04/

2. Motivation Know thoughts/input of stakeholders Collect/store data with minimum cost Quick reaction time to critical issues Documentation for assessment Documentation for specific program needs Curiosity!

3. Instruments Surveys: –UndergraduateUndergraduate –GraduateGraduate –CapstoneCapstone –Exit InterviewExit Interview –AlumniAlumni –EmployersEmployers Students Evaluation of Instructions –SEISEI Additional Surveys as requested/needed –CS 1 / 2CS 1 2 Interactive Blog –CS BlogCS Blog

4. Systems Free and open-source software phpESP: PHP Easy Survey Package –Easy to use web UI for survey creation, management, and reporting –Data can be exported (i.e., Excel) or queried (MySQL) bBlog –Simple blog system written in PHP using MySQL Integrated with: –Moodle: A Free, Open-Source Course Management System for Online Learning –COMPASS: Our CS Assessment Project

5. Our Experience We gather feedback via: –Various Surveys –Course Assessment –Blog We formulate discussion points for blogging Faculty review and make recommendations Department takes appropriate actions Overall, it has been very positive, helpful, valuable, and less intrusive…

6. Conclusions Be wise, easy tools are seductive Too much information is not always good Keep your questionnaires/requests clear, short, & focused Keep your eyes on the prize- deal with important & critical issues first Useful documentation for programmatic needs Must supplement formal assessment methods Just because you know something is broken, that does not mean you know how to fix it- take time to think through the issue & develop an appropriate solution…

7. References phpESP: PHP Easy Survey Package –http://phpesp.sourceforge.net/http://phpesp.sourceforge.net/ bBlog –http://www.bblog.com/http://www.bblog.com/ COMPASS: Computer Science Assessment –http://compass.cs.westga.eduhttp://compass.cs.westga.edu Moodle: A Free, Open-Source Course Management System for Online Learning –http://moodle.org/http://moodle.org/