Rating our own professors

(Bruce Bottomley Photo)

Big changes are coming to Dalhousie course evaluations –most notably that students will be able to see the results forthemselves.

After months of consultations across the university, Senate hasapproved a policy statement for student ratings of instruction,mandating that:

• they will be undertaken in all applicable universitycourses;
• they will include a set of common questions (along withcustomizable questions set by individual professors, departmentsand programs);
• the summary results to those common questions are to be madeavailable to students.

In practice, this will mean that starting in September 2011, allDalhousie course evaluations will include a common series ofquestions about teaching concepts such as communication,organization and engagement with students. Students will then beable to access the summary results of this section – notthe individual comments – through a secure website, providedthe professor has chosen to release the information.

Students welcome change

The Dalhousie Student Union, which has been pushing for studentaccess to student ratings of instruction data for years,considers the move a big step forward for both accountability andadds validity to the course evaluation process.

“What we wanted was something that would help studentslearn more about their professors’ strengths and weaknesses,and give the process of course evaluations more credibility,”says Shannon Zimmerman, outgoing DSU president. “Manystudents don’t give enough attention to filling them outbecause they don’t know what happens to that data.”

Alan Shaver, Dalhousie’s vice-president academic, haschampioned the change, admitting he was surprised Dalhousiedidn’t have such a system when he arrived four years ago. AtMcGill, where he taught for two decades, students have had accessto course evaluation data for years.

“When the students brought the concern to us, we did thedue diligence of benchmarking,” he explains. “What dothe other major research schools do? How do they implement such asystem? As we consulted with our stakeholders, we also saw howdifferent the evaluations were in different programs at Dalhousie.So before we could address making the data available to students,we had to take a step back and create a policy that wouldstandardize some of that data.”

A point of debate

Though the principles of the new evaluation system have beenapproved by Senate, there are still a lot of questions left toanswer and many months of consultations left to come.

“What Senate has approved at this point isreally the policy statement,” explains Susan Spence Wach,associate vice-president academic and the university’spoint-person on the project. “Now we have to figure out howto implement it. It's an important foundation from which we canwork through the details with further consultation.”

Already, the process is leading to some anxiety on campus. Dr.Shaver acknowledges the change has been the subject of significantinternal debate. “In some faculties, it was treated as a slamdunk,” he says. “In others, there were seriousreservations.”

Some of those reservations are being voiced publicly. CUPErepresents part-time faculty, teaching assistants and markers atDalhousie and is challenging the university on the issue, sayingthat course evaluations need to be decided at the bargainingtable.

“We would never agree to this because of privacy concernsand conflict of interest concerns; are the students going to haveto disclose their names, their motivations, their efforts andgrades?” asked Barb Moore, president of Local 3912 in arelease.

Ms. Spence Wach explains that while not all the details havebeen finalized, some broad principles have been established. Forone, students will only have access to the summarized statisticaldata on the common questions – not the completeevaluation. She also says the system will be opt-in –professors will have the option to agree to have theirsummary data accessible to students.

Will it work?

That part of the process – the opt-in – begs thequestion of whether enough professors will choose to make theircourse evaluation data accessible to students forthe system to be viable.

“There are some faculties and faculty members that haveconcerns or reservations about this system,” says Ms. SpenceWach. “The opt-in respects that while also respecting ourcollective agreements. That said, at other universities we’velooked at with a similar system, it appears to have broad facultysupport. We have excellent professors here, so based on thefeedback thus far I’m optimistic that this will beembraced.”

Several other questions need to be answered as the newevaluation system moves forward through the next stage ofconsultations: How to review courses taught by multiple professors,such as those in the Environment, Sustainability and Societyprogram? Should new faculty be given an exemption from the system,giving them room to learn without having their evaluationsavailable to students? Will the course evaluationitself move online at some point in the future? How will thedata reflect classes with a small sample size? How exactly will theopt-in process work?

These are hurdles other universities have cleared: Dr. Shavernotes a majority of Canada’s research-intensive universitiescurrently have some sort of student-accessible courseevaluations.

“There are universities in Canada that have been doingthis for a long time,” he says. “Has it undermined theeducation system in those great schools? No. We’re not thefirst to think of this.”

More importantly, he says the process of working with thefaculties to implement this system places increased attentionon the value of teaching.

“I hope it achieves a greater buy-in from students in thecourse evaluation process. I hope it achieves a greaterunderstanding at the university as to what course evaluations are,and what they are not. And I hope it helps students choose theircourses.”