Fall 2023 Course Evaluations & Two New Opportunities

Please see the message below from John Meier, Provost and Millie Smith, Academic Project Coordinator:

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

Student evaluations of teaching are one of several means by which teaching is assessed at the College, and they provide input to faculty members to develop and revise their courses. Faculty members are encouraged to consider their evaluations in judging the effectiveness of their teaching. (see Faculty Handbook Section 4.2.1.1) 

The standard College evaluation form will be administered to students in all fall 2023 lecture, laboratory, and seminar courses with an enrollment of 5 or greater, through the web-based evaluation tool Anthology Course Evaluations. Evaluations will be open from November 27th through December 8th. Please note that the open evaluation period begins immediately upon return from the Thanksgiving holiday break. 

Please be sure to set aside time to administer course evaluations at the beginning of a class session during the open evaluation period to obtain better response rates and a more representative class sample. As Anthology Course Evaluations is a web-based platform, please inform your students about when you are planning to administer evaluations in class and remind them to bring a web-enabled device with them. Administering the online course evaluations completely outside of class time or at the end of class are generally less effective practices.

There will are two new course evaluations opportunities this semester:

• On Monday, October 30th at 12:20 pm there will be a virtual Course Evaluations Platform Primer on Zoom. This session will go over the standard evaluation questions, the evaluation timeline, using the online platform, administration of evaluations, and evaluation report access. New faculty or any faculty member who would like a refresher on the online platform are welcome to register and attend the Zoom session. 
• During the fall 2023 open evaluation period a limited number of faculty will be invited to participate in a course evaluation pilot. Participants in the pilot will be able to set a custom open date for their course survey availability within the standard open evaluation period. Interested faculty members should indicate the courses they would like to enroll in the pilot by Monday, October 30th. It may not be possible to enroll all submitted courses into the pilot as it is important to have a representative sample in order to better assess the impacts of utilizing custom open dates.

Per Section 4.2.1.1.2.1 in the Faculty Handbook, faculty members who wish to refrain from using the standard College evaluation form must communicate their reason in writing to the Provost’s Office at provostoffice@lafayette.edu . Please do so by Monday, October 30th so that the course evaluation administration team is notified in sufficient time.

Please also consider administering anonymous mid-course evaluations if you have not already and consulting the CITLS resource on this topic.

If you have questions about course evaluations, visit course evals.lafayette.edu. If you cannot find the answer there, please feel free to contact us at courseevals@lafayette.edu.

All the best, 

John Meier
Provost
courseevals@lafayette.edu

Millie Smith ‘10
Academic Project Coordinator
courseevals@lafayette.edu