Student Course Feedback/Student Evaluations of Teaching Effectiveness

Students can access evaluations in one of two ways.

First way: Email

At the beginning of the SETE period, students will receive one email to their SFSU email per course that has an evaluation available with a direct link to the evaluation to that course. Two additional reminder emails are sent during the SETE period if the evaluation hasn't been completed.

Second Way - Link within Canvas

Students can click on the link labelled Teaching Evaluations (SETE) found in the course navigation within each course in Canvas. Clicking on this link will show all active evaluations, not just the one for that specific class.

After clicking the link to the survey, verify that you are reviewing the course and instructor you think you're reviewing. Courses with multiple instructors will have one evaluation per instructor of record.

Carefully note the survey scale. Left side is generally more positive; right side is generally more negative.

A: Once an evaluation is submitted, it cannot be changed or removed from the system by anyone for any reason.

A: The following points can address student incentives to complete SCF/SETE:

• Receive your grades before the official grade release date - Students who complete all of your course evaluations by the end of the last day of instruction will be able to review your grades as soon as your instructor submit them, prior to the official grade release date. Note: The actual date that early grades become available varies from course to course since faculty have a period of time to finish grading student work.
• Help improve the educational experience - Student evaluations of teaching effectiveness help SFSU ensure quality teaching and learning in all classes in all programs. When you provide meaningful comments that explain what has helped you learn, and also suggest approaches your instructors could use to help you learn better, you help your instructors make continuous improvements to their classes. Your feedback to your instructor is anonymous and confidential. Instructors cannot identify specific student responses and only receive evaluation results after final grades have been submitted.
• Pay it forward - Other students are making comments to instructors that will, in some way, shape the classes you take next semester, or next year. When all students provide constructive feedback on all courses, all students benefit from good teaching. Your voice matters, make it count.

A: Once the evaluation period opens, you will receive one email message per instructor per course to your SFSU email account. In addition, links to all your teaching evaluations will appear in a block in Canvas after you log in. As you complete your teaching evaluations, these links will disappear. Although you have logged in to Canvas, your responses remain confidential and there is no way for your instructor to identify your submission.

A: No. You can complete each evaluation whenever it is most convenient to you – one at a time or all at once. When you compete one evaluation, you’ll be invited to complete an additional evaluation until all are done. You will, however, have to complete each individual evaluation in one sitting since the system is not able to save partially completed evaluations. Also, your evaluation is not entered until you hit the submit button!

A: Almost all instructors and classes will be evaluated. Exceptions may be classes with very low enrollment, where there is very little instructor-student interaction, when there is an instructor change after the census date or when the course is not for credit.

A: No, instructors are never able to identify the responses or comments of individual students, even though you have accessed the teaching evaluations by logging in to your SFSU email or Canvas account. The link is in no way tied to your student account. It is a unique, one time use password to take the survey. Also, all data are shown in aggregate form to the instructors, they cannot see individual student responses. Lastly, instructors are not able to access evaluations until one week after the date that official grades are due.

Academic Senate Policy #S13-213, Administration and Processing of Electronic and Paper Teaching Effectiveness Evaluation Forms (TEEFs), states: All TEEFs shall include the six university core items, shown at the end of this policy document. Colleges and departments are encouraged to add items to the actual instrument. Standard instructions shall read as follows:
 

Please evaluate the teaching effectiveness of your instructor. Your responses are important and will play a significant role in performance evaluations and in retention, tenure, and promotion decisions and post-tenure reviews. Your responses are anonymous, and your instructor will receive this feedback only after course grades have been assigned. For items 1.1-1.5, rate the item on a scale ranging from the most
positive response on the left (option 1) to the least positive response on the right (option 5).
 

1.1 The instructor defined the course objectives, learning activities, requirements and grading policies clearly in the syllabus.
Strongly agree◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Strongly Disagree
1.2 The course was organized in a way that helped my learning.
Strongly agree ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Strongly Disagree
1.3 The instructor created experiences that stimulated my learning.
Strongly agree ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Strongly Disagree
1.4 The instructor provided helpful and timely feedback on my performance and progress throughout the semester.
Strongly agree ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Strongly Disagree
1.5 The instructor was open to a variety of points of view.
Strongly agree ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Strongly Disagree
1.6 For item 1.6, please rate the overall effectiveness of your instructor on a scale ranging from the most positive response (highly effective) to the least positive response (ineffective). When I consider the contribution to my learning, this instructor's teaching was: 
Highly effective ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ ◦ Ineffective

Please note the core items do not include any open-ended questions. Colleges and departments are encouraged to add their own open-ended questions so that their faculty may receive qualitative feedback. In this case, the six core questions appear on the form first, followed by the college questions, and
then the department questions. The order of the university core items cannot be changed. When submitting additional questions, the above policy states:
"Any additional items to be added to the TEEF standard six core items by either the College or the Department must be submitted to the evaluation system administrator prior to the beginning of the sixth (6th) week of instruction."

The online class evaluation system does not allow for additional questions from individual faculty. However, individual faculty members interested in adding their own questions may use other campus supported tools, such as Qualtrics survey software.

A: Students will be notified two ways:

• SFSU official email
• Teaching Evaluation block in Canvas -  Links to all teaching evaluations will appear in a block in Canvas after they log in. As they complete their teaching evaluations, these links will disappear. Although they have logged in to Canvas, their responses remain confidential and there is no way for you, the instructor, to identify their submission.

A: An automated email to faculty will be sent prior to the SETE period ending with an in-progress response rate.

A: Although many faculty members believe that lower response rates might lead to less favorable item ratings, the literature has not proven this to be true. [See the SFSU Online Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness Study (link needed), completed in collaboration with the Academic Senate.]

A recent study makes the point that “response rates are not an indicator of student perception, only that of participation.” In fact, the authors note, if the same survey questions are used for an online version and paper version, the actual outcomes and ratings received from the students are similar regardless of which method was used (Burton, William B., Civitano, Adele, and Steiner-Grossman, Penny (2012). Online versus paper evaluations: differences in both quantitative and qualitative data. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, No. 24, pp 58-69).

A: Faculty can consult the Student Evaluations of Teaching Effectiveness Calendar<link> to verify the open and close dates for online course evaluation periods.

A: For instructor changes that occur after the census date, department contacts (AOCs and/or chairs) should alert the SETE Operations Team (sete@sfsu.edu) as soon as possible. The SETE Operations Team will remove the course section from the SETE system and neither instructor will be evaluated. In addition, the SETE Operations Team will provide assistance to the department on using an alternative evaluation process (ex: paper-based, Qualtrics, etc.) for the course section.

A: All evaluation reports will be released to faculty and department chairs at the same time, one week after the grades submission deadline.

A: Yes, department averages and means will be listed at the top of department report. See the SETE Portal Guide<link> for a legend of how department reports are organized.

A: Yes, raw data will be provided to the departments on a per-class/per instructor basis. See the SETE Portal Guide<link> for how to download a spreadsheet of this data.

A: See the SETE Portal Guide<link> on how to view comments for a specific course. Some departments do not include open-ended questions on their reports. The six core university questions do not include open-ended questions.

A: The order of the questions will be provided in the same order as indicated in Academic Senate Policy #S13-213 and cannot be changed. The six University questions will come first, then the college questions, and then the department questions.

A: Only colleges and departments may add additional questions. Faculty can use either Qualtrics or Canvas to create separate surveys to ask these additional questions.

A: Currently the instructors will receive two separate reports (one from each listed course). Only the department in which the instructor is employed will receive the evaluation report.

A: All SFSU credit bearing courses will be evaluated using the SETE system, unless a department chair makes an explicit request for a particular course or course series to be exempt from this requirement. Examples might include Independent Study or Master’s Thesis courses. A couple months before the evaluation period begins, the SETE team will reach out to department contacts to confirm which courses they would like evaluated.

A: Students will receive a separate evaluation for each official instructor of record listed within the SFSU Gateway.

Through a collaborative and consultative campus process documented on the Academic Senate website, SFSU selected a locally-hosted Scantron ClassClimate software system as the technical means to implement the existing Academic Senate course evaluation policies for course evaluation. The primary goals for moving from a paper-based to online system for administering course evaluations include:

• rich and timely feedback on the student educational experience
• accessibility for students with disabilities
• parity for fully online classes
• environmental sensitivity and cost effectiveness

improved efficiencies for faculty, students and staff

Ratified in fall of 2012, Article 15.15 of the new CFA Collective Bargaining Agreement requires student evaluations of all courses, which may be provided in written or electronic (online) form. Each CSU campus was encouraged to use its own internal governance structure to determine whether its campus would implement either online or paper-based evaluations, or a mix of both.

The goal of the Student Evaluations of Teaching Effectiveness (SETE) project (Formerly known as the Online Course Evaluation Project), therefore, was to facilitate a governance process that would lead the campus to a decision with respect to electronic or paper-based evaluations. Regardless of the mix of methods used to collect course evaluation data, all data would be stored and managed within the Scantron ClassClimate system the campus had previously chosen. There were, therefore, three aspects to this OCE project:

• Policy review and alignment, with respect to Academic Senate policy and Departmental Retention, Tenure and Promotion policies
• Business process development and implementation, with respect to coordinating the logistical process of soliciting, creating and administering course evaluation surveys, and
• Technical implementation of the existing policies using the Scantron ClassClimate software system, which will be hosted locally.

To this aim, the OCE Task Force met regularly during 2012-2013 to coordinate the various aspects of this project and engage campus stakeholders, as appropriate to each of their roles.

• Michael Goldman, Academic Senate Chair
  • Academic Senate Policy
• Carleen Mandolfo, AVP of Faculty Affairs
  • Retention, Tenure and Promotion Policy Coordination and Communication
• Andrew Roderick, Asst. VP, Academic Technology
  • Business Process & Technical Implementation
• Cristian Alvarado, AT Services Lead
  • Technical Implementation