As the fall semester is quickly coming to an end, students and faculty are preparing to officially launch online course evaluations.

Students complete course evaluations at the end of each semester. The data is used to evaluate a course and its instructor.

This semester is the first time all classes will complete evaluation forms online.

Faculty and staff proposed the idea of moving course evaluations online and planned a trial that included 15 classrooms and 210 students in the fall of 2013.

“The response was extremely positive,” said Sr. Kathleen Mary Burns, director of Web Development and creator of the online course evaluation.

“The online process is much less labor intensive as there is no counting out forms, no separation of comment sections, and no feeding paper into a machine for reading,” said Burns. “The online forms are also reproduced without cost and are quicker for students to complete.”

Teachers will announce in class what day they plan on holding course evaluations. On that day students must bring an electronic device that connects to the internet with them to class.

Each student is then issued a PIN for each evaluation they complete.

The PIN is used to assure that each student only completes one evaluation per course and instructor.

All PINs are destroyed as soon as the evaluation is complete.

“It’s important for the students to know that the evaluation cannot be traced back to them in any
way,” said Dr. Kathleen O’Neill Ruthkosky, associate vice president for the Office of Planning and Institutional Effectiveness.

The questions the students will be asked are the same ones that were used with the paper format.

The online course evaluation link is located on the Students landing page in the “Resources” section of the MarywoodYOU portal.

“Our goal is to have information back to the faculty more quickly so that they can make any changes in that course for the next time they teach it or the next semester,” said Ruthkosky.

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