From Dr. Crawmer –
Greetings!
Welcome to Fall Semester 2019! You may already know that we are moving to an online platform for Student Feedback Forms. Whether this is old news, or new news, the attached includes valuable information.
Student Feedback Forms are going online!
Many of you are aware that more than two years ago, we started examining the possibility of delivering Student Feedback Forms in an electronic environment. Committees (composed of primarily of faculty) investigated various platforms. EvaluationKit from Watermark Insights was the committee’s first choice, and has been purchased.
Pilot
We conducted a pilot of Evaluation Kit during Spring/Summer. We selected 11 different sections, representing both: online and onground delivery, Gen Ed and Occupational courses, low and medium prereq levels to use the new electronic forms this Spring/Summer. Only one section experienced technology hiccups; unfortunately, we have been unable to replicate and trace that problem. All other sections reported no problems, and 123 out of 155 enrolled students completed the forms, for an overall completion rate of 79.35%. We are very pleased with these results.
Roll Out
We are looking forward to the all-campus roll out for Fall 2019 semester. There will be more “how-to” details as we move closer to the timeline for actually administering the surveys, but, there are a few protocols that have immediate impact. The surveys are administered within the D2L “shell” for each section. Every class section, whether onground, online, or blended, will have a shell that houses, at a minimum, student access to the survey. The old “Survey” button in D2L has been temporarily disabled to avoid confusion. At a future date, we will activate the functionality of adding custom questions to the standard Student Feedback Form, or possibly return the old “Survey” option, but for our initial launch, we want to keep things as simple as possible.
Because D2L will be the delivery platform for our Student Feedback Forms, the practice whereby our eLearning staff have, at faculty request, combined multiple sections of the same course into one D2L class needs to be discontinued. EvaluationKit does not have a mechanism for assessing combined sections. If you have concerns about maintaining consistency of announcements, due dates, etc. across multiple sections, our eLearning staff is well-equipped to assist you in protocols for easier day to day management of your online and blended classes.
EvaluationKit is a solid step forward in improving our process for Student Feedback Forms. As we get closer to the dates for administering the surveys, we will be providing more details. You can expect to see some of these details, FAQ’s, and tips from our pilot group in September.
