Implementation, Analysis, and Assessment of On-Line Teaching Evaluations

This ongoing project involves the introduction of the new, on-line teaching evaluation that enables students to anonymously assess their teachers and courses via computer. Over the past three years of this program, student compliance has been voluntary and has varied from a high of 73{\%}, during the pilot program, to a low of 46{\%} during the spring of 2005. Possible reasons for the lower compliance and measures that were taken in order to increase the compliance will be discussed. Such measures may have helped increase the compliance to 64{\%} during the fall of 2005. The evaluation instrument, student compliance, analysis of data, and assessment will be discussed. Comparisons continue to be made (1) by grade received, (2) by class standing, (3) by ethnicity, (4) by gender and (5) of science versus non-science courses. In addition to common questions answered by all students, the on-line form allows instructors to add course-specific questions. Additional disciplinary-breadth assessment questions were added for the fall 2004 evaluation. Ongoing problems that have resulted from the introduction of on-line teaching evaluations will be discussed along with successes.