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Division of Academic Affairs
Institutional Research
Division of Academic Affairs
Institutional Research
Home – Institutional Research – Guides – Student Evaluations of Faculty – For Faculty – Best Practices

Best Practices

Background

In Spring 2017, the CSUN Faculty Senate passed a resolution in support of a fully online process for student evaluations of faculty (SEFs), to begin Fall 2017. All courses being evaluated will therefore now utilize an online survey process (via CoursEval), and summary reports will be delivered to faculty in digital form. This is only a change in the mode of delivery; survey questions will remain the same and the policies surrounding the choice of classes to have evaluated have not changed.

Accessing the SEF

Students and Faculty need to go to http://www.csun.edu/sef where they can log in with their CSUN credentials to access the online SEF survey. You may want to write this URL on the white board in your class when administering SEFs. The link to SEF surveys will also be available in the Student Portal, under the Academics tab (look for “Evaluate My Classes”).

Best Practices

In order to encourage high levels of student participation in the online SEFs for your course, we recommend that faculty:

1. GIVE STUDENTS TIME IN CLASS TO COMPLETE THE SEF(as you would with paper SEFs).

    • Make sure to assign a student to proctor and leave the room as you would with paper SEFs.
    • The experience of faculty who have piloted online SEFs indicates that giving time in class to complete the SEF is critical for:
      • maintaining high response rates (which, in turn, results in ratings that are comparable to ratings on paper surveys)
      • encouraging students to respond to the open‐ended section of the SEF.

    2. Let students know in advance when the window of time for completing the SEF has begun and when you plan to give them time in class to complete the SEF.

    3. Remind students that they will need an internet‐capable device (surveys can be completed on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop).

    4. Have students complete the SEF at the beginning of class.

      • Consider allowing students to come to class a little late (e.g., 10 minutes) on the day that SEFs will be completed if they complete theirs at home in case they don’t have an internet‐capable device to bring to class.

      5. Even if some students say that they already completed the SEF at home, it is worthwhile to still provide the time in class. The experience of faculty in the pilot project was that even if some students indicated that they had completed the survey at home, most students had not done so.

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