Undergraduate access to course evaluation data became a reality at the May 3 Arts and Sciences Council meeting, when faculty members approved a plan from the administration and student leaders to post the information from the new evaluation forms online.
"What we're trying to do is make the best use of the information that we have here," said Matt Serra, assistant professor of psychology. He and Abhijit Prabhu, incoming Duke Student Government vice president for academic affairs, presented the council with the preliminary design of the web page that will be known as the Student Accessible Course Evaluations System.
The web page will only include answers to the machine-readable questions from the form, bypassing the long-time debate over how to provide registering students with written comments about a particular course.
Instead, the written evaluations will be used mainly by professors and departments. In addition, Serra said the system will provide professors the opportunity to post online responses to data from their classes, allowing them a chance to offer explanations for some of the ratings.
Prabhu, a senior, said the evaluation data will be linked from each course on the bookbag section of ACES, allowing students to view opinions of a course while registering.
"It makes it easier and more secure when ACES already has all this other information, from your grades to art history courses, to have evaluations there too," Prabhu said. He added that SACES will likely be online by November and possibly as soon as August, depending on the development of online software.
SACES will attempt to give undergraduates as much information as possible, Prabhu said, including the full texts of questions and the means and medians for majors and non-majors. Eventually, he said, students will be able to search an archive with five semesters of information. Although the council approved the plan nearly unanimously, some faculty members expressed reservations about the system and want to review it in the fall.
"It is this type of system--that will exclude written comments in favor of quantitative responses--that is going to devolve written comments out of existence," said James Rolleston, professor of Germanic languages and literature. "Students are going to wonder, OWho is reading my comments? Not the computer.'"
Unlike the old "green sheets," the new evaluation forms are machine readable, making the online posting of results much easier. Dean of Trinity College Robert Thompson and Prabhu's predecessor Jason Bergsman, Trinity '01, took on the challenge this past year of developing a distribution system.
In response to recent criticism of the new form's design, this month the council informally agreed that the evaluation should be redesigned to emphasize the importance of written comments.
Trial approval of the online system represents the culmination of nearly two years of work by DSG and the administration. Bergsman and his predecessor, Drew Ensign, both strove to find a replacement for the last online course evaluation system, Duke Undergraduates Evaluate Teaching, after the faculty canceled the program in fall 1999.
Professors rejected another plan a year ago, before yielding this month to what some professors have called the inevitable development of an evaluation system.
IN OTHER BUSINESS: Robert Byrd, chair of the Perkins Library Renovation Committee, presented the council with reports from his committee's six working groups. The reports outlined what is needed before the committee and architects decide on future plans.
Byrd said the committee and architects have four options: renovation of the library's interior; demolition and reconstruction of the interior; construction of an addition to the library; and replacement of the older stacks with an addition.
He also reassured several professors of the committee's commitment to improving the library's aesthetic qualities.
Director of Undergraduate Admissions Christoph Guttentag also gave his annual update on the incoming undergraduate class.
He stressed the success of recruiting efforts, citing this year's record high number of completed applications and of minority applicants.
The meeting was the last of the council's two-year term and of Professor of Chemistry Steven Baldwin's term as council chair.
Baldwin's two years at the helm saw a wide range of activity--addressing issues like the course evaluations and the Honor Code--and raised the profile of the sometimes-overshadowed Arts and Sciences Council. Ironically, the first meeting of this council term--Sept. 10, 1999--saw the demise of DUET and the beginning of work toward the new course evaluation system.
Next year's council members and Baldwin's successor are expected to be announced later this month.
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