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Guidelines for Administering Student Ratings of Instruction

Before mailing student ratings to the respective processing centers, the CSTL has specific guidelines to follow.

Please discuss the following instructions with your faculty so all evaluations are given uniformly and with confidentiality.

• The IDEA Center recommends "that IDEA be administered near the end of the course (about the second to the last week) so that the students' ratings of their progress can accurately reflect their learning for the entire course. Do NOT administer IDEA on either the last class before the final exam or on the day of the exam."

• Faculty should fill in a Faculty Information Form (blue) for each class. Make sure ALL fields are filled in with a No. 2 PENCIL. This includes all 12 Objectives. Your weighting of these objectives is very important because it describes the uniqueness of your course by defining its purposes. No course can be all things to all students. IDEA recommends that you select no more than 3-5 objectives either as "Essential" or "Important." As a general rule, if you choose three objectives, only one should be Essential; if you choose five, only two should be Essential. Your choices should prioritize what you want students to learn in your course. According to IDEA, if all 12 objectives are rated as 'of no more than minor importance', then one of the 12 objectives must be rated as 'Important' or 'Essential.' Also, when all 12 objectives are rated as 'of no more than minor importance', it will have a negative effect on the results for 'Progress on Relevant Objectives.'

Collection of the IDEA Faculty Information Forms can be done one of two ways:

1) the faculty member has someone put the completed IDEA Faculty Information Form with the students' completed IDEA Student Response Forms at the time of administration; 2) the faculty members return the IDEA Faculty Information Forms to a central office where they will later be collated with his/her class' student response forms.

• Remind the students to use a No.2 PENCIL. Write on the chalkboard the information for the items on the student scan form: (1) Institution; (2) Instructor's name; (3) Course number and section number; (4) Time and days class meets.

• To insure objectivity and uniformity, IDEA strongly recommends that someone other than the instructor administer the rating forms. Have either a member of the class, teaching assistant, or colleague take charge. Arrange for the materials to be returned to the designated office as soon as the students have finished. The forms from each class should be sealed securely in their own envelope with the faculty name, department, and course code on the outside of the envelope.

• The IDEA Center strongly recommends "NOT using IDEA with less than five students." Classes with four or less completed evaluations will not be analyzed and will be returned to the appropriate faculty after final exam week.

• Do NOT use rubber bands or paper clips on the response forms. They damage the forms and will cause problems when scanning.

If you have any questions regarding the evaluations or their administration, please call the CSTL at extension 2298.

List of IDEA papers available to faculty.

Visit the IDEA Center web site.

Click here to order the Evaluation Forms online.