Introduction
- Universities require that students be given opportunities to evaluate the modules/courses/subjects which they attend.
- Evaluation processes are often heavily flawed.
- I hope to address a number of the flaws.
- I want to make it easier and faster for lecturers to perform module evaluations.
Why use my system?
- It requires no human intervention by anyone other than yourself and the students. This eliminates the wait times that occur when other people are involved.
- The analysis produced is accurate and detailed.
- It is truly anonymous, unlike the other evaluation systems in use at my institution.
I’ve had enough of nagging others for weeks on end to help me produce dodgy numbers. I’d rather use a streamlined system I can trust.
Is it official enough?
The core of the survey is a copy of the official system of the University of the Free State Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. The only changes made are: removal of some demographic questions at the end so that it is actually anonymous (as opposed to just pretending to be) and to reduce redundancy; and removal of the Afrikaans so that it matches the new language policy (only English). The results are on the same scale as the official system, only more trustworthy.
Main Steps in Module Evaluation
- Make (copy and adjust) a survey.
- Send it out to students.
- Download the responses.
- Analyse the responses.
- Report the results.
Step 1: Copy my survey
- Open your browser (Chrome/Firefox/Edge/…) and sign into your Google account (you must have a Google account for my system to work).
- Go to your Google Drive https://drive.google.com and make a folder or find a good place for your survey.
- Paste or visit this link in your browser: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Fk5yXH3q0BaxPDB-BHn3fUVkEB8sQQ3zKZ5sed20Nj8/copy
- It will prompt you to make a copy of the form, do so. In the top left corner you must change the title and then click the small folder icon to move it to a suitable place in your Drive. Do not skip any of these steps.
- Once you’ve saved it in your own drive you can then proceed to change the form, including: the department, the course code, your email, and the logo if necessary.
- Do NOT change the order nor number of the questions at all. Even changing the wording can cause issues with the analysis if you are not careful. Only change the introduction block.
Step 2: Send out the survey
- Click the big Send button in the top right of the page.
- Click the link icon next to the envelope at ‘Send via’, then click ‘Copy’ to copy the link.
- Email the link to your class with a message asking them to please fill it in. Using your learning management system for this is recommended.
- Wait, then wait some more. You could send a weekly reminder.
Step 3: Download the responses
- Go back to your Google Drive and find your copy of the survey. It might be under recent files, or require manual navigation.
- Click on the Responses tab in the top middle section.
- Find the small green square with white lines and click on it. It will lead you to a Google Sheets spreadsheet that contains your responses.
- Click File -> Download -> Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) to get an Excel file of your responses.
Step 4: Get your analysis report
- Visit https://seanvdm.co.za/shinyapps/evaluations/ .
- Enter your module details.
- Upload your responses (Excel file).
- Download a detailed report with all the scores, summaries, graphs, etc.
Step 5: Read the report
- Go through the report and try to understand the feedback.
- See if there is anything constructive that you can learn from the feedback to improve future modules.
- Incorporate the key points into your teaching portfolio.
TL;DR (Recap)
Copy my survey by clicking here, modify introduction only, send out to students, wait, download responses in Excel (.xlsx) format, upload responses here to get report.