STUDENT OPINION SURVEYS

Administering the Student Opinion Surveys

A. Who, when, how often.

1. For faculty in service at Georgia College & State University at the beginning of a calendar year two courses per semester are to be administered the Student Opinion Survey. One of these courses must be chosen by the chairperson, each semester, and the other course must be chosen by the faculty member, each semester. Both courses each semester are to be chosen with consultation between the faculty member and the department chairperson and either choice may be appealed to the college dean [to whom one appeals has not been specified]. Faculty may select all their courses for evaluation, with approval of the department chair. Part-time faculty will have all courses they are teaching evaluated without exception.

2. The Student Opinion Survey shall be administered in a minimum of two courses per semester, except as outlined in item 5 below.

3. Exceptions to the policy of two courses each semester , which is caused by unusual instructional situations (such as tutorial instruction, etc.), must be approved by the chairperson and school dean, and an alternative procedure must be specified and approved by both.

4. The Student Opinion Survey in a given semester will be administered during the last 4 weeks of a semester.

5. When a faculty member of one department teaches in another department, the chairperson of the other department may select, after consultation with the faculty member, an alternate student opinion or other summative instrument and require that it be used in one class each calendar year. This alternate summative instrument may be counted as one of the two minimum required summative Student Opinion Surveys if both department chairpersons agree. Otherwise, this alternate student opinion instrument or the standard Student Opinion Survey will be used for formative purposes only and not included in the required summative results for each term. The chairperson of the other department must share the results with the faculty member and with that faculty member's chairperson no later than one month into the semester following completion of the course.

6. Faculty members shall have access to all Student Opinion Survey information that pertains to them and the right to have copies of it for their use.

Student Opinion Survey results for the close-ended questions are located under the PERSONAL INFORMATION TAB in MyCats. Responses to open-ended comment questions are provided to faculty members as determined by their department chair.

Faculty members may access their close-ended result reports as follows:

1. Login to MyCats.

2. Go to Faculty tab.

3. Go to PAWS Links.

4. Click on Personal Info.

5. Click on Student Opinion of Teaching Survey Results

6. Then select the Survey Term and the faculty member's Department and press Submit (on this page you may also select to "See Previous Terms Reports" for those terms prior to Spring 2009

7. Then Select Instructor and press Select Instructor

B. Timing of chairperson's selection of course to be to be administered the Student Opinion Survey.

Chairpersons shall inform individual faculty members no later than midterm of the courses that they are assigning to be administered the Student Opinion Survey unless they have the approval of or unless it is done at the request of the dean or Provost as a special Student Opinion Survey.

Procedures for administering the Student Opinion Survey.

Once classes have been selected that will participate in the administration of the Student Opinion Survey, either the department chair or administrative assistant/ department secretary will access the online survey courses selection procedure as follows:
1. Login into myCATS (http://mycats.gcsu.edu) and click on "GCSU Reports" in the PAWS links area on the left side of the webpage.
2. Under "Reports Menu" select "Department Chairs Menu".
3. On the Department Chairs' Page access to the course selection procedure is through the "Student Opinion Survey Course Selection" option on the lower left of the webpage; NOTE - do NOT enter the Department Chair password.
4. The survey term available is shown along with the department (Note: Only the courses related to the department will be shown). Select the courses you want to survey for the term and click Add to List button. If you want to delete a course from the list after being added, use Exclude from list button.
5. Please select a start date for each course selected if desired, [specific parameters and instructions for choosing the start date for a term are to be provided to department chairs by the Office of Institutional Research two weeks before the midterm of a semester]; because data collection cannot take place during final exams, the survey dates cannot include dates after the last day of class for a course.
6. A confirmation list of the courses selected will be displayed.
7. The system will automatically launch the evaluation for a course either on the day selected or the default date of 4 weeks before the end of the term.
Students who have classes selected for evaluation will receive an email containing the following information and instructions - "Over the next few days your Instructors will let you know if your class has been selected to be assessed and also when the online survey for that class will be activated. Not all classes will be assessed and classes may be assessed at different times during the last few weeks of the semester. To access the on-line Student Opinion Survey of Instruction process and fill out the survey for your classes selected to be assessed, please do the following:
1. Login to your MyCats account: http://mycats.gcsu.edu
2. Under PAWS Links click Personal Information.
3. Click on Student Opinion of Teaching Survey.
4. The survey form will be opened and then follow the on-screen instructions; you simply use the mouse to move the cursor to select the desired response to each question.
5. On the survey form you are given three options: (1) complete the survey and press the "Submit" button; (2) if you wish to take the survey at a later time [but before midnight on the day before the start of finals], press "Take Survey Later"; (3) if you choose not to evaluate this class, press "Decline to participate".
6. The entire process will take less than 5 minutes per class and you can complete the process at a time and place convenient to you.
7. If you have any questions about or problems with the on-line data collection, please contact Dr. Ed Hale in the Institutional Research office: please do not contact the SERVE helpdesk for assistance.
Students normally are free to take the survey at their convenience; however, a faculty member may choose to have students in their classes take the survey collectively. It is the faculty members' responsibility to make all arrangements for doing so and the administration of a collective Student Opinion Survey process must be done during regularly scheduled class time and in accordance with the following:
1. The instructor appoints a responsible person, a monitor, who is acceptable to the chairperson and who will monitor the collective Student Opinion Survey process.
2. At the time of the administration of the collective Student Opinion Survey, the instructor is not to be present. If the instructor is present, the monitor shall ask the instructor to leave the room and shall not proceed until the faculty member has left.
3. The monitor asks the students to login using the instructions (above) and to proceed with completing the survey for the class. The monitor stays until the last student has completed the survey and ensures that each student has successfully completed the process and logged out.
Upon the close of final exams for the term and the submission of final grades, the Director of Institutional Research generates the reports for both close-ended questions and open-ended, comment, questions.
1. Faculty and students may access the reports for close-ended questions by following the instructions for faculty (above) or for students which follow:
  1. Login to MyCats.
  2. Go to Student tab.
  3. Go to PAWS Links.
  4. Click on Personal Info.
  5. Click on Student Opinion of Teaching Survey Results
  6. Then select the Survey Term and the faculty member's Department and press Submit (on this page you may also select to "See Previous Terms Reports" for those terms prior to Spring 2009)
  7. Then Select Instructor and press Select Instructor
2. Responses to close-ended, comment, questions will be provided to faculty members in a manner to be determined by their department chair. There is no provision for students to have access to comments.
  1. Department Chairs may access complete reports, including comments, by doing the following:
    i. Login into myCATS (http://mycats.gcsu.edu) and click on "GCSU Reports" in the PAWS links area on the left side of the webpage.
    ii. Under "Reports Menu" select "Department Chairs Menu".
    iii. Enter password and click on I agree to abide by this policy button to enter the menu.
    iv. Click on SOS Processing link.
    v. Select the Survey Term and Select File to Download from the following:
    
    1. Survey Results (close-ended questions in Excel format)
    2. Comments in Excel format
    3. Comments in Word format
    4. Survey Results and Comments in Excel format
    vi. Only those courses and instructors that belong to your department (s) will show.
The Student Opinion Survey reports and comments the original Student Opinion Survey forms, as well as other documentation used as a basis for a chairperson's evaluation on the Department Chairperson's Evaluation of Faculty Performance, are retained by the chair.
No personnel decisions will be made only on the basis of the Student Opinion Survey reports.

ASSESSING TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS

DEPARTMENT PLANS FOR ADDITIONAL ASSESSMENT