Ohio State has been spending $40,000 annually to print 1 million Student Evaluation of Instructor forms. Now, in an effort to save time and money, the university is trying to phase out the paper forms by offering an online version.
Although administrators cannot track how much is being saved with the online forms, they are saving a lot of money on printing and labor costs, said Alan Kalish, the director of faculty and TA development.
Kalish said many courses that first used the form were online distance learning courses. The university then began offering the online forms to the larger departments with the largest amount of students. Using larger classes allows for more students to begin using the online form and become accustomed to it, Kalish said.
The online evaluation forms have been available since autumn 2001, said Terry Childers, an SEI administrator who oversees the scanning and database for the SEI forms.
Childers said 557 course sections participated in the online evaluations this past winter quarter, a small number compared to the total number of classes offered at OSU. The plan is to add the courses slowly to avoid major problems before offering it to all courses.
The online SEI forms are available for all professors who choose to use them, but many professors are unaware of this online option, Childers said. The availability of the online form is being communicated to professors through their departments, starting with the largest departments first.
Childers said the form has spurred positive feedback and she expects the use of the form to continue growing.
Kalish said the university plans to phase out paper SEIs as much as possible in the next few years. Since the form is voluntary, instructors will not be required to use it.
Students in classes using the online forms receive an e-mail at the end of week eight in the quarter and are given until Monday of finals week to fill out the survey, Kalish said. Students then log in with their BuckID, but the data is not kept with the identifier to ensure anonymity.
The online form has the same 10 basic questions as the paper evaluation along with a comment box that was introduced in autumn 2004, Childers said.
"I think the introduction of the comment box made it much more popular," Childers said.
The online form has allowed the university to save time and money as well as cut down on errors, Kalish said. Many errors can occur with the paper forms, such as a student selecting more than one bubble or also misplacement of the forms.
Kalish said these errors cannot occur with the online SEI, and the online form is a much more secure and timely way to collect data.
There are concerns that there will be a reduced response rate with the online forms,Kalish said, because the online evaluations do not occur during class time so fewer students are filling the form out. Childers said if a large amount of students do not respond online, it could affect the evaluation of the instructor and course.
Childers said it takes two weeks to collect data from paper SEIs, whereas the online forms only take her around 20 minutes.
Overall, the online SEIs have generated a positive response, Kalish said.
"We did a survey at the end of autumn for teachers and students and most seemed to like it," he said.
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