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Student evaluations of teaching (SET) is 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, share methods students may use to access evaluations and the online evaluation system, Blue, provide details about how Ohio University protects student anonymity in student rating of teaching, and include tips for ensuring your feedback is successfully submitted.
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All for-credit courses with at least one student enrollment will be evaluated, except those tutorials for which the catalog number is appended by a T (e.g. 3450T). For courses that run seven (7) weeks or longer, an evaluation survey is launched two (2) weeks before the published last day of the course. The evaluation start for courses that run six (6) weeks or less will be five (5) days before the course end date. 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, but students may also access evaluations using any of the methods described below in the Access Blue section.
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. Blue sends reminder emails to instructors and to students who have not yet responded to the survey two (2) and four (4) days after the evaluation begins. In addition to these two reminders, instructors may also generate reminder emails at will. You will stop receiving reminder emails after you've completed your evaluations. Upon submission, you will receive a 'your feedback for [class] has been submitted' message on screen only.
Evaluation surveys for courses that run seven (7) weeks or longer are open for one (1) week, concluding at 11:59 PM one (1) week before the published course end date (i.e. before final examinations). The evaluation surveys for courses that run for six (6) weeks or less are open for the last five (5) days of the class. Please note that responses will not be accepted after the deadline. 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.
After final grades are submitted for the term, instructors receive an email with the evaluation results report and a link to the Student Evaluations of Teaching dashboard.
Aside from the direct link to an evaluation provided in the evaluation launch email, students may also access evaluations using any of these methods:
- Select the Student Evaluations of Teaching 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 Student Evaluations of Teaching link on the slide-out panel.
- Sign into Blue directly at https://my-ohio.bluera.com (select the SAML button to authenticate).
Student evaluations of teaching 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 (5) 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.
- Responses cannot be modified or cancelled after submission, so make sure to read the questions and possible responses carefully.
- 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. Please note that evaluations for these courses will have different launch dates and deadlines than the evaluations for courses associated with the standard calendar, although the evaluation period will follow the established schedules, based on the duration of the course.
- Courses that run seven (7) weeks or more:
- Evaluations begin two (2) weeks before the course end date and conclude one (1) week before the course end date.
- Courses that run six (6) weeks or less:
- Evaluations begin five (5) days before the course end date and conclude on the course end date.