Survey of Student Opinion of Instruction

The goal of the Survey of Student Opinion of Instruction is to give students an opportunity to provide regular, meaningful feedback to faculty and the College with respect to their experience in classes at Madison College. Faculty are encouraged to survey their students in each course that they teach.

Beginning with Fall Semester 2011, the surveys are being provided through a secured, online course survey tool.  For the Spring Semester 2012, the survey tool is directly accessible via a link in Blackboard based on the end date of the classes they are enrolled in.

 The tool will be directly accessible via a link in Blackboard beginning for the spring semester on February 20, 2012.

• Student enrolled in short term classes ending on or before March 9, 2012 will have course surveys available to them from Monday, February 20, 2012 to Friday, March 17, 2012.
   
• Students enrolled in classes ending after March 9, 2012 will have surveys available to them from Sunday, March 25, 2012 to Monday, May 21, 2012.  

Students receive an email notification about the availability of the surveys for all their classes.  Reminder notices are generated periodically if the student does not complete the surveys during the survey period.

After final grades are due for the semester, faculty will be able to access the summarized survey results through a link provided in Blackboard.  The Dean of each Center will also have access to the summarized survey results for courses offered within their Center.

Ways to Raise Response Rates:

1. Raise Awareness – Instructors are encouraged to actively promote the online survey and remind students to complete their survey based on the timeline specified above. 
2. Detail how the results will be used – Explain to students why their feedback is important, including how it will be used to improve teaching and determine necessary changes to courses.
3. Ask for open-ended responses – While the survey is based mainly on scales from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” to allow easier analysis of results, we include an area for comments so that students can voice their perspective, rather than just answer pointed questions.
4. Assure students  of confidentiality – Assure students that all evaluation responses are anonymous and can never be linked to the student who submitted them.
5. Send reminder emails to students – This functionality is inherent in our survey tool, so the reminders will occur automatically without additional support of the faculty or Center staff.
6. Dont’ ask questions you can already answer – The Faculty Professional and Assessment Development committee reviews and approves the standard questions to ensure consistency and relevance of the questions.