FAQ
General Policy
What questions are included on the SLEQ forms?
7 quantitative questions (on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree)
STIMULATION OF LEARNING: The instructor conducted the class / clinical in such a way that I was stimulated to learn.
ORGANIZATION: The instructor organized the class / clinical well.
COMMUNICATION: The instructor communicated clearly during the class.
ENTHUSIASM: The instructor showed enthusiasm for the subject matter of the class.
FAIRNESS: The instructor used fair evaluation methods to determine grades.
FEEDBACK: The instructor provided constructive feedback (considering the class size).
CONCERN FOR LEARNING: The instructor showed genuine concern for my learning.
2 0pen-ended questions
1. What are one or more specific things about the course design or instruction that especially helped to support your learning?
2. What are one or more specific things about the course design or instruction that could be improved to better support your learning?
4 Student Ratings of Course Content questions
The following questions have been added by the Dalhousie Student Union to give students an opportunity to identify racist, sexist, homophobic, and any other oppressive content in course curricula and literature. Any feedback received will be shared confidentially with your professors. The responses to these questions will not be used for Tenure and Promotion purposes.
1. Course materials and instructional resources reflected a variety of diverse perspectives on the course topic(s).
2. The instructor did not include materials that contained offensive or discriminatory ideas except to educate students about discrimination, oppression, or other existing perspectives.
A. What are one or more specific things about the course content that helped create an inclusive learning environment?
B. What are one or more specific things about the course content that could be improved to create a more inclusive learning environment?
How will I know when and where to access the system?
Students and Instructors: will receive emails from the system with a link to the appropriate page on BLUE.
Students will receive a link to one or more forms depending on the number of courses in which they are registered during the last two weeks of the term in which the SLEQ is to be completed.
Instructors and Department heads/chairs will receive an email to access the system for three reasons:
- To enter their specific questions to the SLEQ form during the QP process (Question Personalization). This occurs prior to the feedback period for students and the deadline for submitting questions is indicated once you access the task. The question personalization needs to be submitted 15 days before the last class.
- To access their reports.
- To monitor response rates.
All students and staff can also access the system via Brightspace by clicking SLEQ in the main menu.
Differences between SRI and SLEQ
1. New Name
The SRIs will now be called the SLEQ (Student Learning Experience Questionnaire).
The emails from the system (question personalization, form fill-out and to monitor SLEQ response rates) will now come from SLEQ@dal.ca and not dalsri@dal.ca.
Please note: These are different accounts and the dalsri@dal.ca email will be retired.
2. Changes to Questions
Question 8 is being removed: Students will no longer be asked if overall their instructor was effective. This will be replaced by a composite or overall mean of the other 7 questions on the SLEQ reports.
Two new open-ended questions will replace the previous 3 open-ended questions) as follows:
What are one or more specific things about the course design or instruction that especially helped to support your learning?
What are one or more specific things about the course design or instruction that could be improved to better support your learning?
3. New course content questions have been added.
The Dalhousie Student Union proposed the addition these questions to give students an opportunity to identify racist, sexist, homophobic, and any other oppressive content in course curricula and literature and share that feedback anonymously with their professors.
New questions:
1. Course materials and instructional resources reflected a variety of diverse perspectives on the course topic(s).
2. The instructor did not include materials that contained offensive or discriminatory ideas except to educate students about discrimination, oppression, or other existing perspectives.
A. What are one or more specific things about the course content that helped create an inclusive learning environment?
B. What are one or more specific things about the course content that could be improved to create a more inclusive learning environment? The results of these course content questions will be reported directly to instructors and added to the regular SRI now SLEQ reports. Aggregated results only will be reported to Department Heads, Deans, and Faculty-level EDI chairs.
4. There will no longer be a distinction made between Signed and Unsigned Comments
All comments will automatically be reported to both instructors and department heads. This means that instructors and departments heads will now only receive one report per instructor for each course which will include all results (qualitative and quantitative). Students will no longer be asked to provide permission for these comments to be used for tenure and promotion purposes.
5. Opt Out (currently suspended)
Instructors must now opt-out if they do not want the results of the first 7 questions shared with students. Instructors will be contacted directly with instructions on how to op-out of this process. Previously, instructors opted in to this process.
To qualify for having their scores shared, any individual course SLEQ will need to receive a 40% response rate, a minimum of 10 responses and a “sufficient” reliability assessment score.
6. Process by which Discriminatory Comments might be Deleted
Under the revised policy, a review committee consisting of the Vice-Provost Equity and Inclusion, the Vice-Provost Student Affairs, the Assistant Vice-President of Human Resources, the Chair of Senate Learning and Teaching Committee, and the University General Counsel (or their designates) will determine if a comment constitutes discrimination or harassment and should be deleted, should any comment be flagged by an instructor.
7. Evaluation Timing
Shorter courses will be evaluated after 80% of the course is completed with a minimum 2 day evaluation and a maximum 2 week evaluation. Any full-term courses will continue to be evaluated for the last two weeks of the course.
The full revised policy can be found on the University Policies website here [PDF - 261 kB].
How do I access the site?
- Students and instructors can access the SLEQ system via Brightspace by clicking the SLEQ link in the main menu of Brightspace.
- Students and instructors will also receive emails with links to and tasks assigned to them (form fill-out, question personalisation, and response rate monitoring)
Where is the data stored and is it secure?
- Our Blue SLEQ server is hosted and maintained by Explorance in Monteal. All data is stored and secured in Montreal. The company has been appropriately vetted by Dalhousie's IT and Legal departments.
Which classes will I get the opportunity to provide feedback for?
All course data is provided to each department and approved before any course is set up to be evaluated.
Departments are mandated by senate to evaluate all credit courses.
Some exceptions apply:
- Honors, Masters, and Doctoral Thesis
- Independent/Directed Studies or Readings
- Co-op terms
BLUE System
As of Fall 2012, Dalhousie University student evaluations have gone completely online and the paper-based system was discontinued. The system is called BLUE and has was developed by Explorance in Montreal, Canada.
Access to the BLUE electronic system
All individuals – students and instructors - who require access to the BLUE must have a valid Dalhousie NetID.
General Questions & Policy
Instructors and Teaching Assistants
5 Tips for helping increase response rates
1. Close the loop
Talk to your students about the SLEQs, what they mean to you and to your career. Give specific examples. Highlight changes you made to the course(s) you are teaching/have taught based on previous evaluation results. This allows the students to understand that their feedback is taken seriously.
2. Engagement
Keep the students engaged in the process by talking to them about it throughout the year. Encourage them to read the "Guideline to students on providing constructive feedback” [PDF - 131 kB], which is linked in the invitation email we send to the students. The document and a related video are also available on the SLEQ website. Share that providing feedback is a skill that needs to be learned.
3. Provide class time
It is recommended that instructors provide time in class for students to fill out the SLEQ forms. Details on best practices/suggested procedures are available on the Resources page on the SLEQ website.
4. Monitor your response rates
As an instructor, you will receive an email with a link for monitor response rate. Monitor your response rate during the evaluation period. Encourage your students to provide feedback.
5. Incentives
Some instructors or programs will offer incentives for students to complete the SLEQ forms. For example, we know some Dalhousie faculty offer an extra point on the students grades if a specific response rate is reached. Some departments offer cookies or pizza to thank students for participating in the SLEQ process.
What is the Department Course Verification Process (DCVP)?
A process whereby each department is provided the opportunity to verify courses dates, names of instructors and teaching assistants for a given semester. This is done by the departmental liasons. If you do not know who to contact in your department, please email SLEQ@dal.ca and we will help you contact the correct person.
How does it work?
Course listings are downloaded from Banner and uploaded to Blue. Department liaisons are sent a link to their courses where they verify the dates, instructors, teaching assistants, and whether a course is being evaluated. Once the data is determined to be correct, the liaison publishes the course.
What/who is a department liaison?
Department Liaisons are individuals assigned by the department head who are responsible, in consultation with the department head, program director, or Associate Dean Academic, for the verification and validation of Banner data before it is used to set up SLEQ forms and other related tasks for any courses listed under their department. They can add departmental questions into the system during the Question Personalization process. They are also responsible for letting us know if there has been a change of department head/chair, Director, or Dean before reports are sent.
Who decides which courses are evaluated in a given department?
Banner information is provided to the departments for verification during the DCVP. The department liaison and/or a designate are responsible to verify the data through the Data Integrity Gateway, DIG, each term.
All credit courses at Dalhousie University are mandated by senate to be set up for SLEQ feedback.
Some courses are not appropriate for the SLEQ instrument and should not be set up to receive feedback. These courses include but are not limited to:
- Honours, Masters, and Doctoral Thesis
- Independent/Directed Studies or Readings
- Co-op terms
If a department or SLEQ liaison is not certain if a course should be evaluated, please contact SLEQ@dal.ca.
When will the results be released?
The results are released two weeks after the grade submission deadline for the semester.
Note: The dealine is based on the end of the semester. Courses ending early in the semester will receive reports after the end of the semester.
Is there any difference in the quality and quantity of comments between the online and paper-based systems?
Research has shown that both the number of comments written, the words used per comment, and the quality of comments increases and improves with online systems.
Does Dalhousie use a paper-based evaluation system now?
As of Fall 2012, the Board of Governors and Senior Administration made a decision to eliminate the paper-based course evaluation process throughout the university.
Certain exceptions may occur for TAs or Lab Assistants who are evaluated through their departments. Individuals should check with their department if in doubt.
Formative SLEQ Reports
The University Senate passed multiple motions making SLEQ data received formative for the following terms. The data collected during the following terms was only sent to instructors and TAs:
- Winter 2019-2020
- Summer 2019-2020
- Fall 2020-2021
- Fall 2022-2023
The results of the following terms were also deemed formative but reports were sent to instructors, TAs, department heads, and Deans:
- Winter 2020-2021
- Summer 2020-2021
If you have any questions about these terms, please do not hesitate to contact us at sleq@dal.ca
Troubleshooting
Instructors, Department Heads, and SLEQ Liaisons
Why can't I access the SLEQ page after login?
Access issues sometimes occur. Please try the following:
- Clear the browser cache
- Restart the browser
- Try a different browser
- Try on a different device
If this problem persists, please contact SLEQ@dal.ca.
Why did only some of my students received an email to evaluate my course?
- Some of students may not be registered.
- The course may be cross-listed and one department may have requested for it not to be evaluated, therefore the students from that department would not receive the invitation. This can be corrected if we are made aware before the end of the feedback window.
- The student has accidentally deleted the link or it is in their spam folder. Advise them to check their emails.
- The student is checking the wrong email account. The SLEQ form can only be accessed through their Dal email account.
Please contact SLEQ@dal.ca if none of the conditions above apply
Are co-op work term courses evaluated?
The SLEQ is an instructor-based feedback system and any course without an assigned instructor is not evaluated.
However, the BLUE system relies on the Banner data, and therefore any courses that should not be evaluated must be indicated by the department during the DCVP (Department Course Verification Process).
Do I have to enter the departmental questions separately for each course in our department?
If you are adding tht same questions to all of your SLEQ forms, there is an option in the Question Personalization (QP) process that allows the liaison to copy their questions by hitting the “copy the questions to the selected subjetcs and submit immediately” option.
Note: You can also use the "copy the questions to the selected subjetcs" option but you would then need to go into each questions personaliization task and submit them individually.
Trouble-shooting
Students
Why can't I access the SLEQ page after login?
If you are having trouble accessing the form, please try the following:
- Clear the browser cache
- Restart the browser
- Try a different browser
- Try on a different device
If this problem persists, please contact SLEQ@dal.ca.
Why have I received more than one SLEQ for a course?
Check the names of the instructor on the form; one of them may be for the Teaching Assistant or Lab Instructor.
If none of these conditions apply, please contact SLEQ@dal.ca.
Why did I not receive an email to provide feedback for my course/professor?
There are some conditions that can result in you not getting your emails to provide feedback for your course/instructor. These include:
- You are using the wrong email. The form link will only be sent to your Dalhousie email account; please access your DAL account as emails are not sent to other accounts. Furthermore, check you spam or deleted emails in your DAL account.
- Some courses do not get evaluated (e.g., directed study, co-op, etc.); please ask your instructor if you will be given the opportunity to provide feedback for their course.
- Labs and tutorials are evaluated at the discretion of each department. You would need to contact your instructor or the department to find out if a lab or tutorial section is supposed to be set up in the SLEQ system.
- Perhaps you are not registered for the course. Check your registration status on DalOnline.
If you do not fit any of the above conditions please immediately contact SLEQ@dal.ca.
Why haven’t I received a link to evaluate my Lab or tutorials?
Some departments do not set up SLEQs for lab and/or tutorial sections.
Please contact the instructor or the department to find out if you will be sent an SLEQ for your tutorial session.
I missed the first email – will I still be able to provide feedback for my courses?
Please make sure you are checking your Dalhousie email account. Search for any emails from SLEQ@dal.ca, including in your Spam or Deleted folders.
The system will send up to 3 reminders until your form has been submitted. You can use one of these reminders to access the form.
Access to the forms is also made available in Brightspace by clicking SLEQ in the main menu.
What should I do if the instructor listed in the SLEQ is not the instructor teaching the course?
The information entered into the BLUE system is generated through the Registrar’s Banner data and then verified by individual departments through the DCVP (Departmental Course Verification Process). Therefore, if the instructor was not named on the Banner data and/or a change of instructor was not indicated through the DCVP, then the instructor of record would remain as it was in the Banner system.
It is the responsibility of the department to ensure that the instructor and course lists are correct. However, mistakes are sometimes made and instructor teaching assignments are sometimes changed after the courses have been set up in our system. If there is a mistake, contact us and we will contact the department to validate and make the correction.
What should I do if I have received an SLEQ for a course in which I am not registered?
The BLUE on-line evaluation system uses the university registration information to compile the list of students, courses, and instructors that will be included in the evaluation process. If you dropped out of a course late in the term and the Banner data is not updated by the time the evaluation opens for students, you may receive an evaluation for a course for which you are not registered.
We will update the student registration data after the last add-drop date. Questionnaires for studnets who are no longer registered automatically get deleted.
Please contact SLEQ@dal.ca to remove your name from our records.
Can an SLEQ be submitted after the deadline?
Unfortunately, SLEQ forms cannot be submitted after the feedback period is over. This is part of the SLEQ Senate policy. You can read more about it here [PDF - 261 kB].