GatorEvals Policies and Practices

1. Evaluation Policies

2. Administrative Policies

3. Response Rates

4. Research Policies and Reports

1. Evaluation Policies

1.1 Background

GatorEvals is managed through the Canvas learning management system. It is designed to:

1. Maintain a course evaluation system useful for both instructor feedback and personnel evaluations;
2. Provide a user-friendly, flexible experience for faculty, staff, and students;
3. Create course evaluations that reflect the different instructional modalities now in use; and
4. Make clear distinctions between evaluations of the course, the instructor, and the student.

GatorEvals has three main categories (course evaluation, instructor evaluation, and student self-evaluation) and three focused categories that can be used for specific purposes (supplemental questions, online/distance evaluation questions and lab/clinical evaluation questions).

1.2 Courses Required to be Evaluated

All courses taught by a faculty member, adjunct, and graduate assistant must be evaluated by students using GatorEvals.

The following courses may be excluded:

1. Courses involving individual instruction such as independent study, internship,  practicums, thesis and dissertation supervision;
2. Courses or class sections involving types of instruction that occur outside of traditional classroom and/or laboratory settings for which the assessment questions would not be appropriate; and
3. Class sections for which the number of possible respondents to the instrument is so small as to make the results of limited statistical usefulness, such as any course where the number enrolled is less than or equal to 10.

For courses with multiple instructors, each instructor must be evaluated separately, except that faculty who provide fewer than five guest lectures or presentations do not need to be evaluated for that course.

1.3 Evaluation Forms and Data

GatorEvals uses a common evaluation form. Since learning occurs as an interaction between faculty and students, faculty will have the ability to add up to 5 additional questions from a college approved bank.  Each college must submit their approved bank to the University Evaluations Coordinator by the first day of classes. Unique core features of the course may be addressed using GatorEvals. We recommend temporary or experimental methods and materials be assessed elsewhere using other anonymous survey software. All colleges are required to provide evaluation results for the base questions (1–16) for all courses except those specifically exempted as outlined in section 1.2 above. The results of the entire evaluation will be available in standard reports to the dean, the department chair or supervisor, and the faculty member. Questions 3-12 will be summarized and placed on the internet for public review. However, an evaluation will not be publicly accessible if the instructor meets the following criteria at the time the evaluation is created:

1. The instructor does NOT carry a Primary Affiliation of “F” in the UF Directory (cf. http://identity.it.ufl.edu/identity-coordination/uf-directory-affiliations/primary-affiliation/).
2. The instructor is actively associated with one of the following affiliations:
• 191 – Student
• 214 – DCE Student
• 216 – Non Reg Student
• 224 – Newly Admitted Applicant

Public results for fall evaluations must be reported by March 1, spring by June 15, and summer by October 1. Numerical evaluation results will be retained online for a period of ten years and will be archived offline for an additional period of not less than five years. The official record keeper for evaluation results is the Associate Provost – Academic and Faculty Affairs.

1.4 Access to Written Comments from Students

Faculty, including graduate teaching assistants, will have access to student comments associated with their course and may download them for personal use. Those having a supervisory relationship to the faculty member and their designees (i.e. Deans, Department Chairs, College and Department Evaluation Administrators) may also access the comments. Departmental Evaluation Administrators will have primary responsibility to verify supervisory relationships for all faculty and teaching assistants and to authorize Evaluation Report Reader access.

1.5 Additional Evaluations

It will be possible for faculty, departments and colleges to use the system to administer mid-term evaluations, or to add questions for specific purposes from a bank of questions in the system. For example, evaluation questions specific to online courses, clinical courses, or team-taught courses will be available. Mid-term evaluations and/or additional questions should be coordinated through the College Evaluation Administrator (see 2.3 below).

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2. Administrative Procedures

2.1 Evaluation Availability Dates

There will be standardized dates utilized for the initial setup of UF Faculty Evaluations. Those dates will be:

• Opening Dates: Day after the last day to drop or withdraw without failing grades
• Closing Dates: Day before the beginning of the final exam period or prior to the final examination if it is earlier
• Faculty Result Availability Date: Day after final grades are available to students on ONE.UF

Courses utilizing a non-standard calendar should open the evaluations based on a ratio of approximately one week of evaluation per 5 weeks of instruction time making adjustments as needed. Whenever feasible, students should be given a minimum of one week to complete the evaluations. College and Departmental Evaluation Administrators will be able to modify the standardized dates as necessary for their unique requirements.

2.2 Conducting In-class Evaluations

If an instructor provides class time for students to complete the evaluation using laptops, smartphones, or other electronic devices the evaluation must be administered in a class session beginning the day after the official UF deadline to drop a course without receiving a failing grade and before the last day of classes or prior to the final exam (whichever is earlier).

The evaluation must be conducted during a class session in which no examination is scheduled. Students should be given at least 15 minutes to complete the evaluation. The instructor should not be present while the evaluation is being completed.

2.3 Evaluation Administrators

Each college will appoint a College Evaluation Administrator for the evaluations. The College Evaluation Administrator is responsible for checking the final accuracy of instructor data and appropriate open, close, and release dates for faculty evaluations. They are also responsible for authorizing and de-authorizing College Evaluation Report Readers and Departmental Evaluation Administrators for the College. College Evaluation Administrators are also responsible for entering and managing optional evaluation questions for all departments in the college. Each department will appoint a Departmental Evaluation Administrator for the evaluations. The Departmental Evaluation Administrator is responsible for ensuring that all courses requiring evaluation each term are set up for evaluation with appropriate open, close, and available dates. Departmental Evaluation Administrators will have primary responsibility to verify supervisory relationships for all faculty and teaching assistants and to authorize Evaluation Report Reader access.

2.4 Data Correction Requests

Please email GatorEvals-Support@ufl.edu for data correction requests.  

2.5 Instructions for Evaluation Administrators

Evaluation instructions will be emailed by the University Evaluations Coordinator to College and Departmental Administrators each semester four (4) weeks prior to the last day of classes.

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3. Response Rates

The challenge of an online evaluation process is response rates. Each College may develop structures intended to encourage students to participate and thereby enhance these rates. Such plans must conform to the following parameters:

1. Instructors will not have the ability to know which students completed or did not complete their faculty evaluations. The percentage of evaluations submitted for each section will be available to instructors. Instructors can review the response rates for the current and immediately past semester by following these steps:
• Log on information TBA
• New System Instructions TBA
2. Instructors may not provide incentives for students relating to the completion of evaluations that affect the course grade.

If a college chooses to delay release of internal grades contingent on submission of evaluations, it must conform to the following:

1. Instructors may withhold the release of grades for a period (delay period) as long as the response rate is below some specified percentage.
2. Within the delay period, grades will be released to all students in the course as soon as the response rate reaches the specified minimum. (The recommended minimum is 50%.) Neither the instructor nor the college will know which students completed the survey.
3. The delay period cannot exceed 10 days from end of the class (module, block) or the submission of the last assignment, test, or exercise, whichever is later. 

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4. Research Policies and Reports

Numerous standard reports based on evaluation system data will be available for use by faculty and supervisors.

Colleges interested in other types of reports for management purposes may request them from the University Evaluation Coordinator. Note that reports other than those listed above will require programming resources, including the possible use of additional vendor time and design. Therefore, the Associate Provost for Academic and Faculty Affairs and the Assistant Provost and Director of Institutional Planning and Research must approve requests for any new reports, and colleges may be asked to provide funding to cover costs. The Provost’s Office may identify additional general reports to be developed from time to time, which would then be made available to academic units.  Access to GatorEvals data for other research purposes must go through standard IRB protocols via request to the Office of Institutional Planning and Research as with all University data requests.

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Updated August 22, 2018