Office of Teaching Evaluation and Assessment Research
116 College Avenue
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
https://otear.rutgers.edu/
Phone: (848) 932-7466
Fax: (732) 932-1845
Directions
SIRS Procedures
Dates
- Prior to semester start (ongoing):
Departments enter the “Instructor of Record,” including TAs
and co-lecturers, into the Course
Scheduling System. All information entered into CSS will
form the basis for the online surveys. Please
refer to the Scheduling department for your campus for CSS
availability dates and procedures.
- Spreadsheets: OTEAR will no longer send spreadsheets automatically, if you would like a spreadsheet of your survey (DIG) data, please request one by writing to otear@rutgers.edu
- Please note - for surveys that should run
earlier in the semester (e.g., 7-week courses) please confirm and publish the information in the “DIG” survey list at least 2-weeks before the survey should run. If the course is not yet listed in DIG, please contact us.
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Online Surveys (Blue) |
- September 20, 2023: Department
administrators may access Blue/DIG to make any changes to the
surveys (for example, alternate survey dates, alternate
questions, or additional instructors who were not included in
CSS). In many cases, departments may not need to make any
changes, but should still review the surveys in Blue to be
sure everything is in order, and “publish” their surveys (to
confirm the survey details). Information
and instructions for admins using Blue to verify course
information are available here.
- For
Midcourse Surveys (optional)
- October 5, 2023: Deadline to check
course and instructor information and publish in Blue
(“Data Preparation” task), only for courses for which
midcourse surveys are desired, or first-7-week courses.
- Note due to an error in the initial setup, Fall 2023 Midcourse surveys are running 5 days earlier than originally scheduled.
- October 6 - 10: Faculty can add questions
to the midcourse surveys (permission varies by academic unit)
- October 11 - 18: midcourse surveys will
run for those courses indicated and published from DIG
- October 20: (or 24 hours after survey ends) Results for midcourse surveys
will be distributed directly to faculty and department
admininstrators
- November 7, 2023: Deadline for departments to
check course and instructor information, and publish surveys
(in Blue, “SIRS Preparation” task). For courses that end early
in the semester, departments must publish the survey in Blue at
least two weeks prior to the the end of the course.
- November 17 - 28 : (may vary, approximately 12
days before survey starts) OTEAR informs faculty and
instructors of their individual survey details. Faculty may
optionally add questions to SIRS
or adjust their own survey dates.
- November 29: Surveys begin (unless otherwise
indicated)
- November 29 through end of survey: Students who have not
responded will receive email reminders (exact dates vary)
- December 14: Surveys end (unless
otherwise indicated). Note that this is the last day of
the reading period, if you want your survey to end earlier or later the department administrator can change the dates in DIG or instructors can adjust
the dates in Blue.
- January 3, 2024 - approximate last day to
submit grades to the registrar (refer to the registrar’s
schedule for exact dates)
- January 4, 2024: SIRS results distributed
through Blue to most faculty, instructors, and
department administrators.
- January 11: : RBS School 22
SIRS results available (delay to accommodate varied course
schedule).
- Late January (TBD) : Law Schools 23
and 24 SIRS results available (delay to
accommodate varied course schedule).
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General Information
Lecture and recitation or lab courses: The
Student Instructional Rating Form is designed to include both lecturer and the recitation or lab instructors. If the lectures and recitations/labs share the same course and section numbers, both instructors will be included on the same survey.
If one instructor teaches both the lecture and the
lab or recitation meetings and would like to collect feedback
from the students in each meeting separately, a manual change
must be made to “split” the surveys to explicitly target the
respective meetings. Please contact OTEAR for assistance.
OTEAR will set up online surveys
in this fashion unless the department requests a different
procedure. Please let us know by the deadline if you would like
to follow a different procedure in your department.
Team-taught courses: If a course is taught by a team of
faculty members, we will include each member of the team in the
survey. Please notify OTEAR if you if you want to run the
surveys as each lecturer completes their component of the course
(staggered dates).
Note that there is an organizational change in how Blue works
for courses with multiple instructors. One survey will be
created for the course. Blue will repeat most questions once for
each instructor, while certain “course-wide” questions will only
be asked once (shared by all intstructors). In the past, with paper
and in Sakai online surveys, each instructor had their own distinct survey.
Crosslisted courses will have separate surveys for each section which may be combined into a single
survey report or separate reports for each section, depending
on the preference of the instructor. If the instructor does not
inform us of his or her preference, we will generally combine
sections.
Summary data: OTEAR will calculate department
and level averages for different survey administrations separately (i.e., change in circumstances or survey media), to
allow for possible differences introduced by the survey format.
Follow-up procedures: When we receive all of
the completed student rating forms for a department, we compile
and return the results to the department after the university
grading period closes. We do not interpret the student
responses. Any instructors who feel that their survey has
errors should communicate this to his or her
department chair. The department chair should inform us of any
surveys that should be re-processed
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Online Surveys |
Email Notifications: OTEAR will send each
instructor an email notification approximately one or two weeks
before the start of their survey. Instructors can optionally adjust the
survey dates or add questions in Blue.
Students receive email notifications throughout the survey period, as well as reminders in Canvas.
Status Updates: Instructors may log in to Blue
to monitor the progress of their survey on the Response
Rate Dashboard.
Completing online surveys during class time:
Students may complete the survey using their mobile phone or any
computing device. We recommend giving out the link during a
mid-class break; this can bring response rates up to the same
levels as a paper survey (which would by necessity be
distributed in class). For convenience, instructors may project
a QR Code for Blue in the classroom, students can use the
camera in their phones to quickly scan the code instead of
typing the survey link.
General Instructions for Completing the Student
Instructional Rating Forms: Students can go to https://sirs.rutgers.edu/blue
to complete all their course surveys. Please remind your
students that:
- The name of the instructor appears on each question of the
survey. Students should double-check to make sure they are
responding to the correct instructor before completing the
survey.
- Response fields for each question are clearly labeled (see the sample
online SIRS form) and may vary in position based on screen size. Students should make sure they mark
the response they intend.
- In cases where we mistakenly list the name of the wrong
instructor on a course survey, students can notify us by email
through a link on the survey itself. We will correct the name
on the form as soon as possible, and send all responses to the
correct instructor.
- More Information:
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