The University of Illinois Springfield has established policy requesting and considering the opinions and input of students in the evaluation of faculty for personnel reviews, including reappointment, promotion, and tenure. Arranging for student evaluations of teaching for each term is a regular part of the responsibilities of faculty members. To facilitate gathering of student’s thoughts and opinions about courses and instructors, the university uses a standard student rating instrument.
Faculty also have the option of deciding whether to use the UIS standard form or an alternative evaluation form. Alternative evaluation forms must be approved by the department/school, the dean, and the Provost.
In addition, faculty may choose to administer a formative supplemental evaluation in addition to the UIS accepted instrument. A bank of questions that may be drawn from is available on the Academic Affairs website
The following practices are currently in place. Additional information is also available in the Faculty Personnel Policy, Article 9. Professional Responsibilities. The specific protocol for implementing these policies is the responsibility of the Provost/VCAA based on consultation with the Personnel Policies Committee.
Procedures
There are five different types of classes for which course evaluations are administered in a given semester - first-half, second-half, team taught, irregular and full-term. Courses with fewer than three enrolled students are not evaluated, as student confidentiality may be at risk with such a small sample size. The Faculty Files Office in the Office of the Provost is responsible for overseeing the evaluation process each semester.
Faculty receive an email announcement approximately three weeks prior to the last day of class notifying them that the online evaluation system is available for students to begin completing their evaluations. This notification includes the submission deadline date. It is the faculty member’s responsibility to provide their students with the instructions regarding access to and completion of the evaluations. A notification will also be posted in the Learning Management System (currently Canvas).
Course evaluation data is available to faculty after grades for a given semester have been transmitted to the Registrar. The Faculty Files Office generates a summary report for each full-time faculty member’s permanent personnel file for each course taught during a given semester. An email notification is sent to full-time and adjunct faculty notifying them that their evaluation summaries are available online. Current and historical evaluation summaries can be accessed through the following url: https://uisapp-s.uis.edu/evaluation/. Through this site faculty are able to access their individual and cumulative, department/school, college, and university-wide summaries. Student comments are included in the database, but can only be seen in the individual faculty view (secure access) and are not included in the summary entered into the personnel file.
Team Taught Courses
The process for team taught courses is identical to that for other courses, except that each instructor will be evaluated individually.
Alternative Course Evaluations
Faculty may seek approval to use an evaluation instrument other than the campus approved form by completing the Request for the Use of Alternative Evaluation Form. This document must be approved by the Department/School or Program, the appropriate Dean, and the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.
As with standard evaluations, data is unavailable to faculty until grades for a given semester have been transmitted to the Registrar. The Provost’s Office shall summarize the results and forward the summary to the Personnel File where it shall be retained permanently.
Supplemental Evaluations
In addition to using the required standard evaluations, some faculty, departments/schools, and programs develop and have students complete formative supplemental evaluations of courses and teaching. Faculty may choose if/when supplemental course evaluations are administered and documented. A bank of supplemental evaluation questions is available on the Academic Affairs website.