Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs), also known as course evaluations, are conducted near the end of every semester, giving students the opportunity to provide instructors and academic leadership with feedback that can have an impact on class content and instruction. This article will give an overview of the process of Student Evaluation of Teaching at Ohio University and include tips for ensuring student feedback is successfully submitted.
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Unless excluded by the college, all courses are evaluated, regardless of enrollment. Starting in fall 2025, all courses except those of the tutorial (TUT) type will be evaluated, regardless of enrollment. An evaluation survey is launched two (2) weeks before the published last day of the course. Instructors and students are notified of the evaluation launch by an email sent from CourseEvaluations@ohio.edu. The student version of the email contains a link to the survey. Students may also access evaluations using any of these methods:
- Select the Course Evaluations link in the Canvas course menu.
- If you don't see this link in your Canvas course, your instructor may have hidden it; choose one of the other methods to access the evaluation.
- Select the Account icon at the top of the green menu along the left of Canvas, then select the Course Evaluations link on the slide-out panel.
- Sign into Blue directly at https://my-ohio.bluera.com (select the SAML button to authenticate).
Instructors may also share the evaluation link or QR code in class, as well as monitor response rates (though not view the contents of responses) in Blue throughout the evaluation period. Three (3) days after the evaluation begins, Blue sends a reminder email to instructors and to students who have not yet responded to the survey. Four (4) days before the evaluation ends, Blue sends a second reminder email to instructors and to students who have not yet responded. In addition to these two reminders, instructors may also generate reminder emails at will. You will stop receiving reminder emails after you've submitted your evaluations. Upon submission, you will receive a 'your feedback for [class] has been submitted' message on screen only.
Evaluation surveys are open for two (2) weeks, concluding at 11:59 PM on the published course end date, and no further responses are accepted after this time. If you are unsure of a course end date, you can find it in the My Ohio Student Center and in the Course Offerings Search.
Starting in fall 2025, the evaluation period will be reduced to one (1) week, with the surveys opening two (2) weeks before the course end date and closing one (1) week before the course end date (before final exams begin). This change is planned to comply with Faculty Senate resolutions passed in spring of 2025 supporting the standardization of the Student Evaluation of Teaching process at Ohio University.
After final grades are due for the term, instructors receive an email with the evaluation results report and a link to the Blue Course Evaluations dashboard.
Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) surveys are anonymous and instructors do not receive their results reports until after final grades are submitted for the semester, so be honest and thoughtful in your responses.
In order to preserve student anonymity, student names are not included in reports. To further protect your anonymity, do not include your name or any other personally identifiable information in your evaluation comments.
Instructors do not receive individual course results reports for classes with fewer than five students enrolled, but student feedback for these smaller courses is still reviewed after being aggregated into departmental and college reports. College administrators may also combine data from smaller course sections to produce a report that meets the enrollment threshold. Only college evaluation administrators are able to provide these aggregated and/or combined reports to instructors.
- If you can't finish your response in one session, your progress will be saved and you can return to finish and submit any time before the deadline using any of the access methods described above.
- Questionnaires differ by college, school, and even department; make sure to read the questions and possible responses carefully in order to avoid invalidating your response by selecting 'agree' when you meant to select 'disagree,' as responses cannot be modified after submission.
- Courses with multiple instructors will only have one evaluation survey, but the instructor-focused questions will be repeated for each instructor.
- Ensure you are responding with regard to the intended instructor.
- Deadlines for participation are firm. Surveys will not be re-opened or reset for any reason.
- While the majority of classes follow the established Academic Calendar, with end dates that coincide with the close of the term, some programs have specialized calendars (e.g seven week courses). Please note that evaluations for these courses will have different launch dates and deadlines than the evaluations associated with the standard calendar, although they will still begin two weeks before the course end date and conclude on the course end date.