Summative Student Evaluation Procedure

PROCEDURES FOR ADMINISTERING SUMMATIVE STUDENT EVALUATIONS

1. When courses are evaluated summatively by students (i. e., for inclusion in academic files for personnel purposes), such evaluations shall be conducted during the last two weeks of classes for the term, preferably not on the last day of classes or during the final examination period.  All evaluation forms shall be processed by Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS), a neutral party, in order to provide standard results, security of data, and privacy of the results.

2. The evaluation in a face to face course shall be conducted preferably at the beginning of the class period and students shall be given sufficient time to fill out the forms (at least ten to fifteen minutes).  The evaluation in an online course shall be conducted using UM Survey and administered by ITSS.  Instructions for completing the evaluation shall be sent via email to students by the instructor.  Departments offering online courses must make arrangements with ITSS one month in advance, so that ITSS staff will have enough time to set up the evaluations and provide information to the instructors.

3. Forms for face-to-face courses shall be distributed and collected by someone other than the instructor of record in the class; for example, another instructor, a departmental staff person, a work-study person, a volunteer or designee from the class, or another student in UMD. Each academic year, members in a department will determine according to departmental procedures which of the aforementioned categories of people are appropriate for distributing, supervising, and collecting the evaluation forms. After the instructor of record has arranged for someone to distribute and collect the evaluation forms, s/he shall not be present in the room while the students are filling them out.  Forms for online courses shall be distributed by directing students to the UM Survey instrument.

4. At the beginning of the period, whoever is designated to distribute and collect the evaluations in the face-to-face class shall read aloud to the class the following statement, which will be included with the packet of summative evaluation forms: "The University of Minnesota Duluth is committed to providing a positive learning environment and takes student evaluations very seriously. We ask that you also take them very seriously. Your responses to this questionnaire are important; they are used to review and improve teaching. Student evaluations are also used in tenure, promotion and salary decisions for your instructor. We especially request your respectful written comments. Constructive feedback related to teaching and learning will help your instructor improve future course offerings. The evaluations are anonymous, and will not be seen by the instructor until final grades for this course have been recorded."  This language shall be added to the UM Survey instrument for online classes.

5. The person who is designated to distribute and collect the evaluations in a face-to-face class will remain in class while students fill out the forms. Under this person's supervision, students shall fill out the evaluations quietly and individually so the data are linked to each individual student's assessment of the instructor and the course.

6. When the forms are completed in a face-to-face class, the person who has supervised the evaluation shall place them in a sealed envelope and sign the envelope across the seal. S/he will take them directly to the departmental staff person. If the departmental staff cannot be located, then the person who has supervised the evaluation shall take the sealed envelope to the appropriate College Dean's Office. Staff in the Dean's Office will alert the appropriate department at the earliest convenience. If the class to be evaluated is held after regular working hours, then the designated collector will deposit them in the after-hours box located outside Kirby Plaza 143, addressed to the departmental staff. To ensure the security of the process, the instructor of record can choose to accompany the person who has collected the forms to the place where they are to be delivered.

7. If the class to be evaluated is an internship, practicum, field experience, or other "real world experience" in which the students do not meet together regularly, then the instructor shall designate some individual(s) at the site(s) to distribute, supervise, collect and return the evaluations securely to the appropriate department. If these arrangements are not practical, then the instructor will consult with the department head about an appropriate means for distributing, supervising, and collecting the teaching evaluation forms; for instance, the instructor can arrange with department staff to mail the forms (with a returnable stamped envelope) to the interns, or the department may arrange with ITSS to have the forms distributed online through UM Survey. Forms that are mailed to interns must be returned to departments before the end of the term.

8. Departmental staff will make sure that the evaluation forms for face-to-face classes are coded correctly according to instructor and course section. Staff will forward the numerically scored forms to Information Technology Systems and Services, which will tabulate them and, after grades are turned in, return the tabulated results to the instructor of record. Before the numerically scored forms are forwarded to Information Technology Systems and Services, departmental staff will separate from the packet of evaluations the qualitative questions and responses (if the instructor has requested that such questions be administered) and retain them until after grades have been submitted for the course. At that time, departmental staff shall give the qualitative questions and responses to the instructor, who then can decide whether to include them in his/her Academic Record File.

9. Each year, department heads shall maintain rosters that list the courses that instructors have designated for evaluation and inclusion for personnel purposes. Faculty are responsible for submitting to their Principal Administrators for insertion in their Academic Record Files the summative evaluations that are required in the University's review cycles for retention, promotion, tenure, and salary adjustments.

10. This information will be available to all faculty members on the web and each collegiate unit will include the URL on the faculty response form sent each semester notifying departments or dean as per practice of courses to be evaluated.