November 24, 2008

Purdue to introduce new system for instructor and course evaluations

CoursEval 3.0 will replace the current paper-and-pencil PICES system, which has been used since 2000. PICES stands for Purdue Instructor Course Evaluation Service.

The new online program is consistent with the end-of-semester instructor and course evaluation guidelines as approved by the University Senate in 1999 (Senate Document 97-9 Revised).

CoursEval 3.0 is being introduced this semester and will continue being phased in through the spring 2009 and fall 2009 semesters. On Dec. 31, 2009, PICES will no longer be used.

College deans were notified in July of the phase-in schedule, and they in turn notified the heads of their academic units.

Purdue began piloting CoursEval 3.0 in fall 2006 and has extensively tested the system. The piloting process provided the opportunity to test many different course formats, to adapt the CoursEval 3.0 system to meet Purdue's course and instructor evaluation guidelines, and to develop technical support.

The pilots involved more than 29,000 students submitting surveys in 832 class sections for 36 academic departments across nine campus colleges/schools.

CoursEval 3.0 has many advantages over the paper-and-pencil system. Marne Helgesen, director of the Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE), says the new system is significantly more efficient, which will save countless hours of Purdue support staff time.

"In addition, results are returned to faculty just hours after the deadline for submitting campus grades," Helgesen says. "The value to students is that this rapid turnaround allows sufficient time for instructors to modify and improve their courses based on the feedback received well before the next semester begins."

Other advantages are that the online system is "greener" than PICES, which consumed an average of 985,500 pieces of paper each semester, and class time need not be used to complete the surveys. Instead, once students are notified online that the surveys are ready, they can complete and submit them in a computer lab, at home, or anywhere they have access to computers and the Internet.

"We've also been able to improve upon the old system by writing open-ended questions that elicit more focused and richer responses from our students," Helgesen says. "For the scaled items in the pilots, our overall response rates remained about the same as the old system, but those students who did respond had more thoughtful responses. We are constantly working to maintain and increase the response rate, taking the lead from courses and curricula whose rates are very high."

A survey of faculty and student users in the pilots found the majority of their responses extremely favorable to using the new system.

Because the campus will have a dedicated server for this new system, security has been tested extensively and granted clearance by the Purdue technology security team.

Each semester, students will have a two-week window in which to complete and submit their surveys. The dates for this fall are Dec. 1-13.

Students will receive a notice online when a survey is available to complete. Faculty will receive notice a week beforehand so that they may alert their students.

David Nelson, CIE instructional development specialist, will be directing the CoursEval 3.0 phase-in. Nelson will work closely with Marge Halsema, manager of Instructional Data Processing, who has been responsible for managing the paper evaluation systems.

Nelson and Halsema will be working with those individuals in academic units who have traditionally supervised the departmental end-of-semester course and instructor evaluations. Faculty with questions can direct them to Nelson or Halsema.

"It is CIE and IDP's goal that the transition to an online system be as seamless as possible," Helgesen says. "A great deal of work by many people has gone into this transition, especially by the faculty and student guidance committee, ITaP and the CIE/IDP implementation team.

"This is the right thing to do at an opportune time — the technology is available and equipment supporting the old system is nearing the end of its useful lifetime. Everyone who has worked to bring this transition about is very excited about its many advantages and the potential to improve our course evaluation system."

The fall 2008 semester phase-in schedule affects 24 departments/units in six colleges:

-- College of Agriculture: Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Agricultural Economics, Botany and Plant Pathology, Forestry and Natural Resources, Food Science, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, and Youth Development and Agricultural Education.

-- College of Consumer and Family Sciences: Child Development and Family Studies.

-- College of Engineering: Engineering Education, Nuclear Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

-- College of Liberal Arts: English, History, Philosophy, and Psychological Sciences.

-- Krannert School of Management: Management and Economics.

-- College of Science: Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics.

General questions and requests for the phase-in schedule can be directed to Nelson at nelson8@purdue.edu or Halsema at helgesen@purdue.edu.