Course Evaluations

A series of colorful bar charts.

Student Evaluations of Courses

Queens College routinely conducts online course evaluations via CoursEval (an Anthology platform) using a questionnaire designed by the Committee on Teaching Excellence and Evaluation of the Academic Senate in 2008. All active students and faculty may access the QC CoursEval system at http://www.qc.cuny.edu/evaluate using their QC CAMS credentials.

Note: In AY2024-2025, the OIE, in collaboration with CETTL and a faculty committee, will re-design the course evaluations instrument to incorporate valid measures of student experiences and address common issues with student evaluations of teaching effectiveness.

 

enter QC COURSEVAL
Purpose

Course evaluations give students the opportunity to reflect on their own learning, and provide a forum for students to share about their experiences. The data and feedback from these evaluations serve a number of important functions:

 

    • They can be used by instructors to improve course design and student learning.
    • They can be used by students to make informed decisions about what courses to take in an upcoming semester.
    • They can be part of the supporting materials put together by faculty for reappointment, tenure, and promotion.
    • When analyzed across a department/school, course evaluation data can help faculty to improve program-level curriculum.
Timeline

The course evaluation period begins three weeks before the start of finals and ends no later than the last day of term. Prior to the evaluation period, instructors are sent the list of courses that they are assigned to, along with a request to check for errors. This CoursEval notice contains a link to an error submission form, which ITS uses to implement corrections. During the evaluation period, students receive emails inviting them to submit their course evaluations, and instructors receive emails inviting them to encourage their students to submit. Instructors may track the count of students that have submitted evaluations by logging into the CoursEval system. Instructors are granted access to their anonymized reports approximately one week after course grades are due.

Student Reporting and Confidentiality

Course evaluations are anonymous. Hence, instructors’ evaluation reports do not identify students in any way.

However, students may notify their instructors that they have submitted an evaluation by selecting the “send proof” option in CoursEval. This option triggers an email notification confirming that a student has evaluated a course. Sending proof is optional for students and may not be required under any circumstance.

Students may edit their course evaluation responses any time before the survey deadline. To edit responses, see our step-by-step guide here: How to Edit Your CoursEval Responses.

Faculty Access to CoursEval Data

Every semester, course evaluations close by the end of the term. Reports are not released to faculty until after all grades are posted. Upon release, instructors receive an email notification that their reports are ready. These reports allow instructors to see response rates for each course and individual course results, including quantitative summary data (counts and average ratings for each survey item) and students’ unedited comments. Likewise, department chairs and deans will be able to access reports for their faculty. Note that department chairs and deans have access to quantitative data only (but not to comments) for all courses in their departments.

To access your CoursEval Reports as an instructor:

  1. Log in to http://www.qc.cuny.edu/evaluate with your faculty account
  2. On your home page, select View Reports 
  3. To view past reports, select Reports at the top and select Evaluation Reports
  4. Set the filters for the year and period and set all others to Show All
  5. Check each report you would like to view (in the Includes column)
  6. Click View above the list of results to view your reports

 

To access CoursEval Reports as a department administrator (chair or dean):

  1. Log in to http://www.qc.cuny.edu/evaluate with your faculty account
  2. On your home page, select Reports in the top-left menu
  3. Select Survey Intelligence Reports
  4. From here you can edit a previous report or create a new one
  5. Select relevant filers and/or aggregations
  6. Run the report as a PDF or CSV file

 

You can learn more about Anthology CoursEval reports here.

Summary data and institutional averages from 2010 on are available via interactive Tableau dashboards.

Summary data from 2001 to 2010 are available to view at https://apps.qc.cuny.edu/courses/.

Tips for Increasing Response Rates

Higher responses rates lead to more reliable information. Instructors may consider the following options to improve response rates:

 

    1. During class time, announce the date when course evaluations will open.
    2. Assure students that the process is completely anonymous. Let them know that, as faculty, you will not be able to see results until after grades are posted and that no identifying information will be included with their responses.
    3. Explain the value of students’ feedback by sharing an example of past feedback you have used in course redesign.
    4. Let students know how they can access the CoursEval system and how to find their CAMS credentials.
    5. Use class time to have students complete their evaluation of your course on a mobile device.
    6. Run through the survey items with your students and explain the questions’ context as it relates to your class.
    7. Offer extra credit to students that select to “send proof”, confirming that an evaluation was submitted.
    8. Grant extra credit to the entire class if the course response rate reaches a certain percent (e.g., 80%).
Questions and Support
CoursEval