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Student Ratings of Instruction Process (Formerly called Faculty Evaluations)
In an effort to help the Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning office process your student ratings, and for you to receive the reports in a timely manner, please do the following:
- Read all of these instructions before packaging the student rating forms for delivery to IRAP. Attention to detail is crucial for properly preparing the packets. Errors result in forms not scanning, reports not running or inaccurate or incomplete reports.
- From PeopleSoft, print the Faculty Evaluation Checklist for your department and include it with your ratings packet. The checklist is located in Reports Portfolio/Student Administration/Student Records
- If your department has elected to participate in the on-line process, you must still send a copy of the Faculty Evaluation Checklist to the IRAP Office. If this information is not received, our office will not be able to run your departmental reports. (Note: Online data and scanned data are merged so that a single set of reports are produced.)
- Use the standard Faculty Evaluation Scan Sheet available through the University Warehouse.
- Do not paperclip or place rubber bands around scan forms. This may damage the forms such that they will not feed through the scanner.
- Remove any blank forms from the packet.
- Include a Control Scan Sheet for each class section evaluated. (See below for instructions on properly completing the Control Sheet.)
- All scan forms must be in an envelope with the faculty name, schedule number and last four digits of the faculty SSN clearly labeled on the outside of the envelope. Any scan forms not in envelopes will be returned to the department office.
- Please do not seal, staple or rubber band the envelopes
- The Control Scan Sheet must be completed in the lower left-hand corner with: (when using the pre-printed control sheets, all of the following information will be completed for you except the 6th digit in the special codes section).
- (F) for Fall or (S) for Spring
- (08) for Year (the last 2 digits of the year in which the class was offered)
- In spaces 1-5, bubble in the Schedule Number
- In the next 7 spaces, the first 3 spaces should be left blank unless you are using them to enter the cross-disciplinary coding. (If you need to do this, call IRAP for instructions, ext. 83906). In spaces 4-7, bubble in the last 4 digits of the faculty SSN, NOT the EmplID. Make sure the faculty SSN matches the name of the faculty member teaching the class. These requirements have been a source of errors.
- Bubble in the Special Code section 1-6, using 222222 if you “do not” want the class to be part of a special grouping. If your forms were pre-printed, you only need to fill in the 6th '2'. Others will already be printed on the form. The 22222(2) coding lets the reporting software know that a new class section is being read. It does "not" signify a special grouping. If you need a special grouping for your reports, you will need to bubble in the 6th space with a # (3-9) according to the value you have assigned to indicate that grouping. If you're uncertain about this, call IRAP (ex. 83906). These spaces should be bubbled in on the Control Scan Sheet only. Incorrectly bubbling in the Special Codes section has been a source of errors.
Please view detailed information on how to properly complete a control sheet, especially if you need special groupings.
Additional errors that prevent IRAP from scanning and producing reports occur on the forms that students fill in when rating their instructors. All rating forms completed by students should be checked before sending the packets to IRAP to assure that they are completed properly. For instance:
- There must be no extraneous marks on the forms. If there are, the marks should be thoroughly erased.
- The scanner cannot pick up items that are bubbled in ink. Any student forms that are completed in ink will not be scanned. If you catch the incorrect scantron it can either be thrown away or the student’s responses should be transferred to a new scan sheet completed in pencil.
Note: If your department has an established policy about how to handle this rating sheet error, follow it when deciding what to do. - Another error involves students filling in bubbles that are outside of the questions’ response range. For example, the question may ask students to respond using a scale of 1-5. In this case, they should fill in one of the first five bubbles. However, they sometimes bubble in the last five or the middle five on the scantron rating sheet. Forms that are completed in this manner should not be included in the packets as they will be included in the mean unless you specify an exclusion on the checklist.
IRAP scans 1,600-1,800 course sections and 35,000-45,000 forms each semester. With this volume, it is impossible for us to check packets for errors. Therefore, all student ratings packets that contain errors will be returned to the departments for correction. Once corrected and returned to IRAP, we will either have to rescan the forms or manually correct the data in the database. This lengthens the turnaround time for departments to receive their reports.
We appreciate your help in making the processing of student ratings of instruction smoother and timelier for everyone involved. If you have questions, feel free to contact IRAP at ext. 3906. We’re happy to talk with you before you complete and send us your packets.