Online Evaluation Resources

Policies Governing Online Evaluations

Inclusion & Exclusion Requests

Departmental administrative personnel can request that courses be included in or excluded from student evaluations of teaching by filling out the following forms. Existing exclusions and inclusions being applied every semester can be found in this list (opens in new tab).

 â€“ The following courses are not evaluated unless requested through this form: Independent Study, Thesis Credit, or Travel Abroad (with subject ABD) courses, or courses with an enrollment fewer than three students. Even with an approved inclusion request, please be aware that there is a 2-student minimum response threshold required for scale question responses to be included in reports. All signed comments are included in reports.

 â€“ All courses with an enrollment of 3 or more are automatically evaluated except those with components IND, THS or TRV (with subject ABD). If an automatically evaluated course needs to be excluded from evaluations, use this form.

 â€“ If a course coordinator or other non-teaching faculty listed on a course needs to be excluded from evaluations, use this form.

Access Blue

Norms Report Request

Standard Questions

The following are the lists of standard questions for student evaluation of teaching:

Resources & Information

Strategies for Increasing Response Rates

The strategies below were collected through external research and feedback from faculty members. These are suggestions only.

1. Set aside time at the beginning of class: Students can be asked to bring a laptop, tablet, or smart phone to do the evaluation while the instructor leaves the room. (This is like the process previously used with paper evaluations – click anywhere in this box for a script you can use.)

2. Highlight importance: Stress to students that these evaluations are important, the instructor takes the suggestions and comments seriously, and they can help improve the class.

3. Reinforcement: Send personal email to students alerting them they will be receiving an invitation to do an online course evaluation. It would be helpful to include information on who the email will be coming from.

4. Reminders: Remind students of online evaluation during the last week of the semester

5. Mid-semester check in: Seeking mid-semester feedback reinforces to students that faculty are actively seeking feedback for use in program development. This could encourage students to respond.

SET Response Rate Reports

Student Evaluation of Teaching on Paper Update

As of Spring 2020, OIRA no longer supports paper evaluations. All evaluations are completed using the online system (Blue). This is in line with the approved April 2020 faculty motion to move toward using online Student Evaluations of teaching. If you have any questions please contact Deb Allen at debra.allen@maine.edu.

April 2020 Faculty Motion