Author: Brendan Keany

Should questions about race be included in course evaluations? Let’s dive in. When it comes to academic course evaluation surveys, the inclusion of a race question can often be a source of controversy. While some argue that collecting data on race can help to identify and address any potential disparities or biases within the education …

While factors like teaching quality, course structure, use of technology and timely feedback have always been important factors for students when evaluating their professors and courses, there is another crucial aspect that can significantly impact the overall evaluation – the number of courses taken in a semester. Here’s how. The number of courses taken by …

There’s a billion different people doing a billion different things to make a billion places better today. You, too, can be a part of that change. At SmartEvals, it is our mission to create environments that empower and educate. This is not only with our college and university course evaluation software and with our clients. …

If your school is looking to save time on course evaluations while simultaneously improving data accuracy, then switching to a software vendor may be the perfect option. Course evaluation software vendors, such as SmartEvals, can help schools break away from archaic means of conducting surveys. But what are the benefits? 1. Streamlined Process By using …

Course evaluations should play an important role in any college or university’s institutional research process. Students are asked to critique courses and instructors at the end of each semester, and their answers, compiling tons and tons of data, can be be used to affect necessary change. Those changes can be small, such as an instructor …

Making surveys understandable is critical in order to effectively collect reliable feedback from the respondent. If a survey is unclear or confusing, respondents are likely to provide inaccurate or incomplete responses. Additionally, surveys must be easy to navigate to encourage the respondent to provide quality and thoughtful responses. Understanding the survey content will help the …

In our previous posts about improving course evaluation response rates, we discussed the importance of getting instructor buy-in and making the process easy for students. The last part of this series kind of goes hand-in-hand with the two previous posts: managing and automating emails sent to students and faculty. When creating a course evaluation plan, …