By Travis Walters
Quarterly classroom evaluations are going online starting Nov. 3 (the beginning of the eighth week of the quarter), and running until classes end. Dean of eLearning Andy Fulp, said that it would be the same form, but online instead of during class. The switch to the online format also makes the college greener, provides faster results for college administrators and faculty, catches up with the Atlanta campus and eLearning and saves money.
“SCAD-Savannah [making evaluations] fully online brings us in line with SCAD-Atlanta, which has been doing this for three years, and [eLearning], which has been doing it for five years. It will be better for students, faculty, administrators and the environment by saving cases and cases of paper,” said Fulp, “It really was time for Savannah to step up to that level and to go green. There are 7,600 students at the Savannah campus. With students taking three classes per quarter, that’s 22,800 evaluations per quarter.”
In addition to reducing the impact on the environment, the move also saves the cost of processing each form. “Hired temporary employees transcribed each comment so that no handwritten comments were submitted to the administration,” said Felp.
The evaluations remain completely anonymous in the move to the online format. “[Evaluations] are placed randomly in order – very anonymous, protective of students,” said Fulp. The evaluations can be taken from any computer with access to the Internet. However, if students wish to take them on the break in a classroom with workstations the instructor will leave the room as before. Faculty cannot see the evaluations until after grades are submitted and the registrar has rolled them.
Fulp encourages students to participate and fill out the comments on the evaluations. They work on case studies to share with administration and faculty. One example was a classroom that was rectangular, with the projector facing the middle of the long wall leaving students on either end unable to see. Those students submitted comments and the classroom was reconfigured, said Felp.
They will attempt to improve the system so that when a student completes an evaluation they will no longer receive alerts about the evaluations. Presently, students will receive notification to submit the evaluation through a blanket email, MySCAD, and other communication channels.
