April 2017 Archives

The Spring 2017 Student Instructional Rating Surveys have begun, most courses use online surveys that are available beginning April 17th with responses due by May 4th. Individual courses may have different dates, or may use paper surveys to be distributed in class.

Because we are piloting new survey software, students may find their surveys in one of several locations:

• Sakai - https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal/site/sirs - most courses continue to use surveys hosted on Sakai
• evaluationKit - https://sirs.ctaar.rutgers.edu/pilot- our new pilot survey tool, which currently includes the following courses:
  • All courses taught in Canvas
  • School of Social Work
  • School of Management and Labor Relations
  • School of Communication & Information
  • School of Business - Camden
• eCollege - https://ecollege.rutgers.edu/  - only fully-online courses that are still using eCollege. This will soon be phased out.
• Paper - departments that have chosen to continue with the old survey system will distribute paper survey forms in class. 

If you are unsure where or when your survey will be, you can look up any survey by course number or instructor name on our current surveys page. 

The Student Instructional Rating Surveys are available to faculty now, for those who wish to add additional questions. Questions must be added prior to the survey start date, April 17 for most courses.

For surveys conducted through Sakai (most courses):

• Access your surveys through the Sakai Survey Dashboard - https://sakai.rutgers.edu/portal/site/sirs
• Follow the instructions for adding questions to surveys in Sakai - https://ctaar.rutgers.edu/sirs/addQuestions.html
• Note that some departments have not given us instructor NetIDs, these instructors will not be able to add questions. 

For surveys in the SIRS evaluationKit Pilot (SMLR, SSW, SC&I, and SBC, plus Canvas courses):

• Access your surveys through the evaluationKit Dashboard (or through Canvas) - https://sirs.ctaar.rutgers.edu/pilot 
• Follow the instructions of adding questions to surveys in evaluationKit - https://ctaar.rutgers.edu/sirs/addQuestions-evalkit
• In addition to adding questons, instructors may change their survey dates directly in evaluationKit. 

Due to unforseen circumstances, we have  canceled the "TAP: Windows Moviemaker" workshop on April 12, 2017.

CTAAR is pleased to announce the latest development in onilne student instructional rating surveys: the Drone Response System. 

It is well known that the student participation rate for online surveys is slightly lower, on average, than for the old paper-based survey system. Students often forget to complete the online surveys. With the new drone program, faculty no longer need to rely on forgetful or procastinating students! 

Here's how it works: CTAAR will send out automonymous flying drones to the classrooms of faculty who choose to participate in the program, at the time and date of the faculty's choosing. The number of drones sent will equal the enrollment in the course. When they arrive in the classroom, the drones will connect to the RUWireless-Secure network, establish a connection to the online survey system, and respond on behalf of the students using pre-calculated predictive hueristics to approximate the actual student response. Faculty will get near-perfect response rates, and the students won't need to do anything at all. 

For faculty who use the paper surveys, faculty should pass out the paper survey forms in class. When the drones arrive, they will use laser-focused cameras to zoom in on the bubble sheets, extend grappling claws to pick up pencils, and fill in the bubble marks for the students. Faculty should designate one drone to collect the completed surveys and return them to CTAAR. Please note that CTAAR will not supply #2 pencils, so faculty should ensure that the classroom has enough #2 pencils for the drones to complete the forms.

Please note that the drones are not yet capable of submitting substantive open-ended comments and are limited to simple comments such as "great class!", "best teacher ever", and "nothing". Faculty who want more detailed open-ended comments may opt out of the drone program, but should understand that their response rates may drop as a result.