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December 1, 2006 > Opinion > Improve class eval returns

Improve class eval returns

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Last spring, the Registrar’s Office-run course evaluations met two new obstacles. The Registrar converted to an online system, which failed to garner response rates similar to in-class evaluations.

Additionally, the Student Association created its own online evaluation program, the SA Course Guide, which arose from student demand to see their peers’ written comments about professors and competed for students’ attention with the Registrar’s evaluations. Only 45 percent of students filled out the Registrar’s instructor evaluations, one of the lowest return rates in years.

Last year’s response rate is simply unacceptable: These evaluations are necessary to improve the quality of our undergraduate teaching, and students need to realize that our comments on these evaluations directly preserve and enrich the quality of our faculty. The Registrar’s Office’s decision to extend the evaluation period until the end of the reading period should help, but pitting the residential colleges against each other in a competition to complete the most evaluations is just another material reward. Instead, the Registrar’s Office should let us benefit academically for contributing to the university’s academic evaluations.

If we are granted access to our peers’ comments on the Registrar’s evaluations, we will have an incentive to fill out evaluations ourselves that is based in scholastic, not material, gain. Allowing us to see what past students have said about a course or a professor would provide unmatchable incentive to fill out the evaluations ourselves — the 1,075 responses published on the SA Course Guide attest to students’ desire for such a service. Plus, the SA Course Guide would no longer be needed, and students would only have to fill out one set of evaluations.

However, if this cannot be done — or at least not done immediately — we recommend a different incentive that has been floated by the Faculty Senate: Allow students who have completed course evaluations to see their grades earlier than students who have not reviewed their professors. Either way, reward us for the academic diligence of completing course evaluations with academic, not commercial, gains.

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