Moving the Student Feedback Survey
Process Online
Beginning with the fall semester 2011, end-of-term Student Feedback Surveys (SFSs) were moved online for all organized sections (i.e., those designated “lecture,” “seminar” or “lab” in MyMav).
As the official “faculty of record” for a given lecture, seminar, or lab section, you are asked to contribute to the success of the SFS process by informing / reminding students of the online survey and encouraging them to participate in the process .
SFS: An Overview for Spring 2013
•
On Friday 4/19, each student enrolled in your course(s) will be issued an e-mail
message inviting him/her to complete an online Student Feedback Survey for the
class.
•
These e-mail messages
will be sent to the student’s official UT Arlington e-mail account
(“mavs.uta.edu”) from the following sender: UT Arlington Student Feedback
Survey [sfs@uta.edu].
•
The subject of each invitation will be “UTA VAlues Your Input! End-of Term Survey for Professor XXXXXXX's course now open!"
•
Each invitation will
direct students to the SFS link for your course’s survey, a password to access
the survey, and a deadline by which the survey must be completed.
• Students who have not responded to the initial invitation after one week will receive a reminder. Access to the survey will end at 11 PM on the last official day of the semester, Friday May 3rd. No surveys will be re-issued after May 3rd.
• If you so choose, you may designate a day during the week of April 29 as “Survey Day” in your course(s), setting aside 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning (or end) of class to let students:
• power up their laptop, netbooks, i-Pads, Smart Phones, or other web-enabled devices,
• access their MavMail account,
• locate the invitation message for your course, and
• complete the online survey.
(You may adopt alternative methods to administer the survey during class time is you so choose, provided that you do not offer incentives or impose penalties. During the survey period, please absent yourself from the classroom.)
Procedural
Questions and Answers
Below you will find some anticipated questions about how moving the Student Feedback Survey completely online. If your question is not addressed, please let me know; I will do my best to respond to your query and, as appropriate, will update this document.-David Silva
Q: Given that I’m teaching face-to-face courses this term, should I expect to receive paper surveys to administer to my students during class, just as we have done in the past?
A: No. From this term forward, end-of-semester feedback for all courses will be collected electronically. The Office of the Provost will not be issuing any paper forms. (If you’ve received paper forms, they are probably for a supplemental survey being administered by your College or School. Contact your chair or dean to confirm.)
Q: But I seem to have received course evaluation forms in my departmental mailbox. What do I do with them?
A: I can’t answer this question. If you’ve received paper surveys, they are most likely part of a supplemental survey that’s being administered by your College or School. Contact your chair or dean to confirm.
Q: How will students know that they’re supposed to complete a Student Feedback Survey online?
A: Every student enrolled in each course will receive an e-mail message informing him/her about the survey, including a hyperlink to the survey for your particular course and a unique password allowing access to the survey questions.
Q: Is there a central website where my students access all of their Student Feedback Surveys at once?
A: No. Invitations to complete feedback surveys are issued directly to the students enrolled in the course via an e-mail message to the MavMail account.
When the students complete and submit survey responses for a given course, the software provides two options: to exit the SFS system or to enter the password for accessing the SFS for another course.
Q: If a student is taking more than one course in a given term, will that student receive multiple e-mail messages about completing a survey for each individual course?
A: Yes. Students will receive one e-mail message for each course in which they are enrolled this term. Each of these messages includes a unique password for each of the different course surveys to be completed.
Q: What if my students don’t check their official MavMail accounts? Will the Office of the Provost be notifying them by alternate means?
A: No, not directly. Given that MyMav has been designated as the official means of contact between the institution and the student, the information necessary to access the SFS for a particular course will appear only in the e-mail sent to the student’s address ending in ‘mavs. uta.edu’.
We are, however, pursuing additional means by which we will encourage students to participate in the online feedback program. Beginning in the fall semester 2011, we will implement a public awareness campaign about MavMail and the SFS process. We will also be relying on each member of the faculty to announce the opening of the SFS process for a given term and to remind students to participate.
Q: So as the course instructor, am I really being allowed to encourage my students to complete the survey?
A: Yes, indeed! When it comes to the getting the students involved in the SFS process, reminding and encouraging is, wholly appropriate. Just bear in mind that no student may be offered any sort of reward or inducement for participating.
Q: Am I required to discuss the SFS with students?
A: No.
Q: I am team-teaching a course. Will student fill out separate surveys for both/all instructors?
A: Yes, provided that your department’s administrative contact provided the SFS Team with this information per established administrative deadlines. Speak with your unit’s AA to find out who’s been assigned responsibility for the SFS in your unit to confirm, or contact David Silva.
Q: If one of my students misses the deadline for completing the survey, can a new survey be issued?
A: No. All surveys must be completed during the time frame specified in the invitation e-mail.
Q: As the instructor, will I be able to connect a student’s survey responses with his/her identity, e.g., by referencing a Net ID or e-mail address?
A: No. Each student’s responses are anonymously combined with those provided by others in the course. Once a student has accessed the survey, all identifying information is removed from the process. Except in the case that a single student is enrolled in a course, neither the instructor nor anybody working on the survey can know how a particular student responded.
Q: When will I receive my survey results?
A: For the long semesters, instructors should expect to receive summary reports (as a PDF to their official UT Arlington e-mail address) approximately four to six weeks after final grades have been posted to MyMav.
For summer courses – including the two five-week sessions, the 11-week session, and summer-framed dynamic sections – all of the SFS data are processed at one time, i.e., after the last session has ended. Summary reports should be issued in mid September.
