Course Evaluation by Students Policy

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Approved by: President's Cabinet

Original Date Effective: 2016-06-10

Last Modified: 2024-02-05

Purpose:

The purpose of this policy is to ensure consistency in the student evaluation of the instruction process. It sets guidelines for how often students evaluate faculty and sets a schedule that avoids survey fatigue

Responsibilities:

The President is responsible for ensuring conformance to this policy. The Director of Institutional Research and Accountability is responsible for ensuring conformance to this policy. The Vice-President for Academic Affairs is responsible for ensuring conformance to this policy.

Policy Procedures:

All Jackson State faculty, both full-time and part-time, will undergo course evaluations for all course sections they teach twice per academic year (once in the Fall semester and once in the Spring semester) via the IOTA 360 Solutions survey tool or any equivalent tool purchased, selected, or developed by the Office of Institutional Research and Accountability (OIRA).

Timeline of Evaluation:

  • Year after year, faculty course evaluations will consistently occur at a similar date in the semester and maintain a similar duration.
    • To eliminate student bias in responses, the course evaluation period must occur before final grades have been awarded for the specified course section.
    • The course evaluation period must provide sufficient time for students to complete the survey instrument and their course responsibilities.
    • The course evaluation period must occur at a point in time for the students to have sufficient exposure to both the faculty member and the course content to make a fair evaluation.
    • Completing the course evaluation is completely voluntary and cannot impact a student’s final grade or academic standing.
  • Course sections taught in different parts of the term might not have the same course evaluation periods; however, these evaluation periods will consistently occur at a similar date in the semester and maintain a similar length of duration based on the part of the term.
    • Course sections taught in the first part of the term may not have an evaluation period shorter than two (2) weeks or longer than three (3) weeks.
      • In the Fall semester, the evaluation period should consistently occur during the final two (2) full weeks of September and close before Fall Break in October.
      • In the Spring semester, the evaluation period should consistently occur during the final two (2) full weeks of February and close before Spring Break in March.
      • In both the Fall and Spring semesters, course rosters for the first part of term classes will be pulled on the 14th
    • Course sections taught in the second part of term, the full term, or in the final 10 weeks of term, may not have an evaluation period shorter than three (3) weeks or longer than four (4) weeks.
      • In the Fall semester, the evaluation period should consistently occur in November, from the first whole week to the final full week.
      • In the Spring semester, the evaluation period should consistently occur in the entire month of April, from the first week to the final full week.
      • In both the Fall and Spring semesters, course rosters for full term, second part of term, and final ten weeks of term courses will be pulled two weeks before the evaluation data file submission deadline (4 weeks before the start of that evaluation session).

Criterion for Evaluation:

  • All courses offered by all faculty members, both full-time and part-time, will be open to evaluation and rating by students.
  • It is not recommended for students who have withdrawn from courses or students who have not attended courses but are still on the roster to complete course evaluations.
    • To ensure these students are not included in the evaluation population, it is the responsibility of individual instructors to provide the OIRA with a list of J-Numbers who have officially withdrawn from the course or who are still on the roster despite having never attended the course, after the passage of the date course rosters are pulled from Banner (see above).
  • It is the responsibility of the respective Deans to provide the OIRA with the class roster for any new sections of courses that are added into the system after the passage of the date course rosters are pulled from Banner (see above).
    • It is the responsibility of the individual faculty to provide the OIRA with the J-Number of students who registered for any given section they teach after the passage of the date course rosters are pulled from Banner (see above).

Content of Evaluations:

  • The survey instrument used to evaluate faculty course sections must be agreed upon by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and all
  • All courses will be evaluated by a standard survey form for consistency unless otherwise specified.
  • A list of course types evaluated under non-standard survey forms is as follows:
    • Learning Support Math
    • Learning Support Writing
    • Dual Enrollment
    • Nursing Lecture
    • Nursing Lab
    • Nursing Clinical
  • There are two (2) points in the academic year where the standard survey form can be quickly revised and new non-standard survey forms can be reasonably added:
    • May-August (Maymester and Summer Term)
    • January
  • The standard survey form can be revised with the approval of the OIRA, all Deans, and the Vice President of Academic Affairs.
  • The implementation of new non-standard survey forms must be proposed to the OIRA by the Deans and approved by all Deans and the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

Dissemination of Results:

  • Throughout the evaluation period, faculty will receive e-mails from IOTA 360 Solutions (or other survey instruments) with the evaluation response rates for their course sections.
    • These e-mails do not contain results but only show the percentage response rates per section.
    • Faculty should receive no fewer than two (2) and no more than four (4) response rate e-mails.
    • Faculty response rate e-mails are sent on the exact dates that students are sent reminder e-mails about the course evaluations.
    • Faculty will receive a final response rate e-mail at the end of the evaluation period.
  • Course section evaluation results will be available at each semester's end.
    • To prevent potential retaliatory behavior, course evaluation results for sections offered in all parts of term will be made available at the end of the semester. This means the first half of term, second half of term, full term, and last ten weeks of term courses will all have their results disseminated at the end of the semester.
    • This will be either the second or third week of May for the Spring semester and either the second or third week of December for the Fall semester.
    • Individual faculty members will receive an e-mail from IOTA 360 Solutions (or other survey instruments) with their results.
    • Department chairs will receive the results of faculty who directly report to them.
    • Deans will receive the results of all faculty within their division.
    • The Vice President of Academic Affairs and the Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs will receive the results of all faculty within all divisions.