Navigating the Student Evaluations of Teaching Dashboard (Power BI)

Description

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has developed a Power BI report dashboard to provide instructors and academic leadership with access to more robust reporting of evaluation data. Instructors and college SET administrators will continue to receive the automated reports emails from Blue for individual course results and department/college reports. 

Environment

Power BI on the web

Student Evaluations of Teaching Dashboard

Accessing the dashboard

  • The first time you access the dashboard, you will need to use the direct link to 'install' the Student Evaluations of Teaching Dashboard app in your Power BI reports (does not install anything on your device). This link is also shared with instructors in automated report notification emails received from Blue (servicedesk@ohio.edu) after the evaluation period ends and term grades are submitted.  
  • After your first time accessing the dashboard, you may continue to use the direct link, or you can open the dashboard from the Power BI site:
    • Once you've signed into Power BI with your Ohio account, select Apps from the menu along the left, and then select the Student Evaluations of Teaching Dashboard app in your Power BI Apps list. 
  • Changes to Blue or SET Dashboard access, such as adding, removing, or modifying user permissions, should be submitted to the Tech Help Center or servicedesk@ohio.edu by a representative of the office of the dean and include the user’s name, Ohio email address, and the specific access change required.

Navigating the dashboard

  • Use the menu along the left to navigate between the Welcome page and the Admin Pages section, which includes the Summary View and Question Details pages. 

Student Evaluations of Teaching Dashboard navigation panel includes a Welcome page as well as two Admin Pages, Summary View and Question Details

  • The Admin Pages section currently displays a version of the question details page which allows you to select multiple course sections and produce combined data. If you are an instructor, as well as an administrator, you may also see an Instructor Pages section, which includes the same screens, but with limited data.
    • Welcome is a landing page with some basic information about the dashboard and navigation instructions.
    • Question Details displays response option rate, number of responses, and mean score for each question on the evaluation form.
    • Summary View displays response rates and overall averages for courses and terms, including how averages trend over time.

Operating the dashboard

  • On the Summary View and Question Details pages, you'll find various drop-down menus, which are called slicers, that you can use to filter the displayed data.

SET Dashboard in Power BI offers eleven drop-down menus, called slicers, to filter data

  • The available slicers include the following variables:
    • Term (only terms evaluated in Blue, does not include historical data collected with other evaluation platforms) 
    • Campus
    • College
    • Department
    • Career (graduate or undergraduate course) 
    • Component (course type) 
    • Delivery Type (in-person or online) 
    • Instructor Name (can only be filtered by academic leadership or administrators) 
    • Class Section
    • Question Section
    • Question
  • Note that, depending on your level of access, you may not have options for all visible slicers.
  • By default, only data for the most recent term is displayed; data for additional terms can be selected with the Term slicer. 
  • If you do not see a course as an option in the Class Section slicer, either the evaluation did not receive any responses or an evaluation did not occur.
  • The slicers are 'sticky,' so when you return to the dashboard, the options selected during your previous session are still in place.
  • If you are seeing unexpected values in the data or in the slicer options, select the Clear all slicers button at the top right of the dashboard (outlined with orange in the image below) to reset all of the slicers and start again.

The SET Dashboard in Power BI includes a clear all slicers button to reset the data and remove all the filters

  • Response rates can be found on the Summary View page.
    • The overall response rate for all displayed courses is found in the green boxes at the left of the page (below).The Summary View of the SET Dashboard in Power BI displays the overall response rate for all displayed courses in the green boxes at left of the page
    • Response rates for individual courses are in the Survey Response Rate column at the far right of the data table (below).On the Summary View page of the SET Dashboard in Power BI, the Survey Response Rate column displays the response rates for individual courses that are displayed.

 

Exporting

  • To export data from the dashboard, do not use the Export option at the very top of the page (outlined and crossed out with red in the image below).

Do not use the Export tool in the header at the top of the SET Dashboard in Power BI

  • Instead, export displayed data by hovering over the desired data visual (e.g. the table in the middle of the page) and selecting the More Options ellipsis (...) in the upper right of the frame (outlined with red in the image below), then choose Export Data.
    • Note that the More Options ellipsis (...), shown below, is only visible while the mouse is hovering over the data visual.

On the SET Dashboard in PowerBI, export data using the ellipsis icon that signifies the More Options menu, which is outlined with a red box for emphasis

  • There are two options when exporting data from the dashboard:
    • Data with current layout option only offers the XLSX file type and includes just the data that is shown in the data visualization that you are exporting.
    • Summarized data option allows you to choose from XLSX and CSV file formats and includes a summary of the data that was used to compose the data visualization that you are exporting. 

Combining course sections (administrators only)

  • To protect student anonymity, faculty are not able to view data in the dashboard for class sections with fewer than five students, even when combined with larger sections. Faculty should contact their college SET administrators for support with combining eligible course sections (i.e. multi-sections courses that are taught together) in the reporting dashboard. 
  • Administrators have the ability to select multiple course sections to provide combined data in more granular detail than found in Blue's distributed department reports by using the Admin Pages section of the dashboard.
  • To display the combined data for multiple sections on the Summary View or Question Details pages:​​​​​​
    • Using the Class slicer, disable the "Select All" option.
    • Enable the particular classes/sections you wish to combine. 
      • Expand the display to include individual class sections by selecting the 'v' icon (outlined with pink below).

In the SET Dashboard in Power BI, select individual course sections from the Class slicer to display combined data

  • While this functionality allows small sections to be combined to share data when the total enrollment for the sections meets or exceeds five students, we do not recommend combining small enrollment classes that are unrelated.
    • This feature should not be used for low-enrollment sections that are not conducted as a multi-section delivery and/or for classes taught by different instructors, unless you're looking for a department- or college-wide report.
    • Only combine small enrollment sections with classes that are taught together by the same instructor(s). 
      • For example, combining a graduate section with two students enrolled that was delivered synchronously with an undergraduate section that had 15 students enrolled will allow the instructor to see the data for those two graduate students aggregated with the data for the 15 undergraduate students.
  • Note that the Summary View page will only display the overall combined response rate, not the means. You can see the response means on the Question Details page when the combined enrollment is five or greater.

Considerations

  • Responses to open-ended questions are not currently displayed on the dashboard, but this feature will be added by the time the dashboard is refreshed with fall 2025 evaluation data the week after final grades are due. 
    • Student comments continue to be available in the individual course reports that Blue automatically distributes by email to instructors and evaluation administrators. 
    • You can access Blue directly anytime at  https://my-ohio.bluera.com/ to review past reports or monitor response rates for ongoing evaluations.
  • To protect student anonymity, data for individual or multiple class sections with fewer than five enrollments (combined) will not display in the dashboard. If slicers are selected for individual or combined sections with fewer than five total students enrolled, the dashboard will be blank.

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Additional resources