Student
Ratings
Table of Contents
Introduction
There are two menu options in the Student Ratings
Report application:
The first menu option, "Semester Results", is used to
view compiled statistics for a semester once the semester is over.
The second menu option, "Response Rate", is used by an
instructor to view the response rates for courses currently
being evaluated.
Response Rate
If you are an instructor, click on the "Response Rate"
menu item at the top of the screen to view the response rates for classes you
teach that are currently being evaluated. All
the classes you are currently teaching should be listed here. You may
need to scroll down the screen to view all of your classes.
If a class is actively
being evaluated by students because it is in the "ratings period", you will see
the number of students that have evaluated the class and the percentage of the
total that this represents. If five or more students rate the class the
names of each student registered for the class will be listed, along with
whether they have rated it yet or not.
Results for each ratings period are available after grades have been
posted. Click the "Semester Results" menu item to view the results.
Semester Results
To view results when a semester is over, click the
"Semester Results" menu item at the top of the screen to view the report.
Instructors have access to the sections they teach, while Department Chairs,
College Deans, etc. have access to all the data over which they have
jurisdiction.
The section or other area you wish to view can be selected from the tree
displayed on the left. On the right side of the screen the current question and
graph sort order can be chosen at the top. The report for the currently
chosen area and question is shown in the main section of the screen on the
right side.
The report displays several statistics for the area and
question you have chosen. The name of the statistic appears at the top of each
table or boxed area, with the statistics listed beneath. The first few rows in
the table show the areas above the current one, and the bottom rows of the
table show the areas below the current one. So, if you are an instructor
teaching the course "DIET 123" and you have chosen "DIET 123" as the area to
display, the first few lines of each table will display the statistic's value
at the University, College, Department, and Course levels. The next few lines
will display the statistics for each section that you teach.
Each row of each table shows the name of the area, the statistic value in
parentheses, and a horizontal bar graph on the right side that provides a
graphical representation of the value. The small number to the left of the bar
graph is the lowest possible value for the graph, and the number on the right
side is the highest possible value. Together they provide the range for the
statistic. By comparing the bar graphs in each row you can see how sections and
other areas compare with each other on each statistic.
Since there are several statistics compiled for each question they will
not all fit on the screen at once. You can scroll down to view all the
statistics available in the report.
Choosing a Section or other Area
All of the areas that you have access to will appear in
a hierarchical "tree" on the left side of the screen. You can expand or
contract each area of the tree by clicking the "+" and "-" symbols to the left
of each area's name. For example, clicking the "+" sign to the left of the
University's name will display all of the colleges in the University. Clicking
the "+" sign next to one of the college names will in turn display all of the
departments in the college. Using this technique you can "drill down" to any
level within the University.
Similarly if you are an instructor teaching one or more sections, a list of the
courses you teach will appear on the left. By clicking the "+" sign to the left
of a course you can view the sections within that course that you teach.
Once a particular area is displayed in the tree, click directly on the name to
choose that area. The report on the right will then change to show the
statistics for that area and for the question that is currently chosen.
If the tree does not expand or contract when you click the "+" and "-"
signs, you are most likely using an incompatible browser. The report
application works with most recent browsers, but does not work with any variant
of Netscape 4.
Choosing a Question
At the top of the screen you will find a drop-down list
showing all of the questions that were asked of students in the chosen area. To
show the report for a particular question, simply select a question from the
list and the report beneath it will immediately change to show the statistics
for the selected question and area.
To move quickly through the questions you can also click the "Previous"
and "Next" buttons that appear to the right of the question list. Clicking
"Previous" will display the report for the question previous to the current one
in the list. Clicking "Next" will display the report for the question following
the current one in the list.
Choosing the Graph Order
By default the reports will display information
sorted in alphabetical order (by the name of the Colleges or Departments, for
example). You can also view the data in "Statistic" order with the lowest value
for each statistic displayed first and the highest value displayed last. This
allows you to easily view a "low-to-high" ranking report for the selected area.
To do this, select "Statistic" from the "Order" drop-down list at the top of
the screen.
Printing the Currently Displayed
Report
You can easily print the currently displayed report by
clicking the "Print" button found at the top of the screen to the right of the
"Order" drop-down list. Clicking this button will cause the currently displayed
report to be printed on your printer.
If you want to print out a report for all the questions for a given area, you
will need to select each question separately and then click the "Print" button
for each report once the report is displayed.
If the "Print" button does not appear, it is probably because your screen
resolution is too low. The reports look best at a resolution of 1024X768 or
higher and the "Print" button may not appear at a resolution lower than this.
Viewing Comments
When a question is selected for which a written
response from the student is required, the report will display statistics about
the length of the responses in number of characters. For example, the "Mean"
for a comment question will be the average length of all the responses in
characters.
Comments and other text responses are directly viewable only at the
section level, so if you wish to read comments use the "tree" to drill down to
the section you want to view and make sure the question you are interested in
(such as "Comments") is selected. If you scroll down past the statistics you
will find the actual written responses displayed.