This section helps you get started with the evaluation process. Selecting course objectives is a very important first step. You are encouraged to check with your dean or division secretary if you need help selecting objectives for your courses.

Selecting Student Learning Objectives

• Descriptions of Each Objective
• Selecting Objectives: A Short Guide
• Historical Selection of Objectives by Academic Discipline (national data)
• How to Complete the FIF: (Video)  (Written Instructions)

Adding Your Own Questions to the Evaluation

Can I add my own questions? Yes! Open-ended and/or personalized items are an important part of evaluation if results are to be used for improvement purposes.

If the evaluations are taking place online, you can add them when you receive the FIF emails, and your students will get them automatically. For instructions on adding additional items, refer to this handout. The IDEA Center has suggested many additional evaluation questions that instructors teaching web courses may choose to include on their course evaluations. In addition, the Course Evaluation Committee at Roane State recently created a list of items that web instructors might want to consider adding.

If the evaluations take place in-class, you can provide questions to your students that day, and there will be a place on their response forms to bubble in their answers.

Now that evaluations are taking place, here are a few helpful hints.

How do students complete the evaluation?

If the evaluations take place online, your students will receive an email for each course in the RaiderNet email accounts. (Not Momentum or any other account.)  If they don't complete it, they'll get email reminders every three days until the administration period is over.  That's a good thing since many times students will delete their first email or their mailbox was full.

If the evaluations take place in-class, see the instructions on the back of the packet you'll receive.

Getting a Good Response Rate (Online Evaluation Method Only)

In order for a course evaluation to be valid, the response rate needs to be at an adequate level. An announcement in at least one class period is the #1 factor in increasing response rates. Students are reluctant to respond to evaluation emails unless they hear about it from you first. You’ll receive periodic status reports via email so you can see how many students have responded.

This section explains how to interpret the results you receive after your course is over.

Understanding Your Results

• Guide to the Short Form Report
• Sample Report
• Video: Interpreting Adjusted Scores

Using Your Results

• Making Sense of Course Evaluations
• Ways to Address 12 IDEA Objectives
• Track Your IDEA Results Across Multiple Sections

Sample Faculty Information Form (FIF)  Completed Version  Blank Version

Sample Short Form for students

For a general overview of IDEA course evaluations, see this presentation which was provided at the New Faculty Academy, 2013 Spring.

For more detailed information on the IDEA course evaluations, please refer to these modules created by the IDEA Center:

• Module 1 (Overview)
• Module 2 (Forms Overview; Student Learning Model)
• Module 3 (Selecting Objectives; Form Administration)
• Module 4 (Interpreting Your Summary Report)
• Module 5 (Suggestions for Use of Results)
• Module 6 (Reliability & Validity of the IDEA System)