In an effort to save time, money and paper, the Office of Institutional Research and Planning is testing an online version of the Student Evaluation of Instruction (SEI) program.
More than 2,500 students – with potentially 3,357 spring course evaluations – in the schools of Science and Engineering and Business can fill out the evaluation forms online at my.newpaltz.edu through May 9. As of May 1, the response rate was 40 percent.
Jacqueline Andrews, assistant vice president for Instructional
Research and Planning, said Online Course Evaluations Inc. compiles
the information on its own server and sends the college the
raw data. She said the system is safe, anonymous, accurate and
offers benefits for students and faculty.
“For the faculty, the chief innovation of the online pilot is their
ability to add their own questions to the standard set,” said
Andrews. “For students, they can evaluate their classes at their
leisure, as opposed to during class time.”
Andrews added that information from the online submissions
will be available to faculty in late May, while the responses to
paper evaluations will not be available until mid-July.
The Institutional Research staff will compare the paper and online methods and invite participating faculty to a de-briefing meeting to determine if online SEIs have a future at the college. For more information, contact Mary Ann Landolina at x3227.
