Evaluation and Assessment

Common Questions

• What is the timeframe for the evaluation period each quarter?

  During the fall, winter, and spring quarters iEval is open between the Wednesday of the 9th week of the quarter through the Friday of the 10th week. During summer sessions iEval is open on the last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of each session.
  
  iEval can also accommodate multiple evaluation periods for courses with multiple instructors; the iEval Coordinator works with faculty in these classes to schedule this.

• Do instructors have to use iEval?

  No. You may opt out of the iEval system for any of our courses. However, please note that faculty are expected to administer student evaluations for their courses under APM-210, or for Unit 18 faculty, under their bargaining unit contract and local department practice. APM-210 specifically states that more than one type of evidence of teaching effectiveness is required for faculty review and that all cases “normally will include (a) evaluations and comments solicited from students for most, if not all, courses taught since the candidate’s last review;…”

  Therefore, removing a course from the list requires pre-approval by your department chair who must address any missing evaluations in future merit/promotion files. If you would like to remove a course from the list, please obtain approval from your chair and have the chair send a request with a brief justification directly to ievalcontact@ucr.edu.

  If you choose to opt out of the iEval system for any of your courses, and you choose to utilize another evaluation system, please be aware that the campus does not support any other evaluation system so no official record of student evaluation of teaching will be generated for those courses in which you opt out of iEval.

• How will students be informed that the iEval period is open?

  Students will be sent reminder notices to their UCR student email accounts throughout the period that iEval is open. Once students complete all of their course evaluations the email reminders will stop.
  
  The primary method of notification will be by email, but announcements may also be posted on Growl and R'Web.

• Are all students able to participate in course evaluations?

  Students who are taking courses through the UCR Extension are not able to evaluate those courses and students who are auditing a course are not able to evaluate that course.

• How do students log in to complete evaluations?

  Students may log in to iEval by accessing www.ieval.ucr.edu and entering their UCR Net ID and password.

• What happens if a student makes an inappropriate comment on the comments section?

  It is the policy of the Office of Evaluation and Assessment not to examine, alter or otherwise monitor the content of students' evaluations of individual instructors. There are two partial exceptions:

  1. If a student comment violates University policy with regards to harassment, a student may be subject to disciplinary action, by referral to the Student Conduct and Academic Integrity Programs. Egregiously inappropriate comments may also be removed from the list of comments on the course evaluation form generated for faculty and departments, with our without sanctions on the student who made them. 

  2. If an instructor discovers a student comment that is clearly addressed to another instructor in their most recent evaluations, these evaluations can be removed with approval of the department chair.

  If comments received fall into either of the above scenarios, please contact ievalcontact@ucr.edu for more information.

• When can instructors access iEval results?

  Instructors can access iEval results (at ieval.ucr.edu) the day after the deadline for submitting grades to iGrade or the day after they they submit their grades, whichever is later. 

• Will the instructors know the identity of the students who provide feedback?

  No. All evaluations are confidential. The log in process confirms students are evaluating only those course for which they are enrolled and only submitting one evaluation per course. Instructors receive iEval reports as PDF documents which do not contain any information about the students who submitted evaluations. Also, they only receive these after they have submitted final grades.
  
  Comments are not edited. Feedback should be honest, fair, and constructive. Students should be aware that although evaluations are confidential integrity, respect, and professionalism should be exercised. Harassment, threats, or other statements that otherwise violate University policy will be forwarded to Student Conduct & Academic Integrity Programs (SCAIP) for disciplinary action.

• Who has access to iEval results?

  Faculty may log in with their UCR Net ID and password to review their results the day after the iGrade deadline for the quarter.
  
  Department Chairs have access to all teaching evaluations for their department and may review them and use them to assess teaching effectiveness, make teaching assignments, and in faculty merits and promotions. In most departments one staff member (typically the management service officer (MSO) also has access to maintain departmental and faculty records.
  
  On a case by case basis, the Office of Evaluation and Assessment will consider providing data from iEval for faculty research. The research must be approved by UCR's Institutional Review Board processes. Data will not be supplied for research designs that cannot protect the identity of both students and instructors.

• How are iEval results stored?

  Archived course evaluations dating back to Winter 2005 may be accessed by instructors and departmental representatives at iEval. For each course there are two PDF documents: one statistically summarizes the multiple choice questions and one lists (unedited) student comments.

• How can instructors assist with improving the iEval response rate?

  Instructors are encouraged to explain the importance of course evaluations and advise students that their feedback is useful in enhancing the teaching and learning experience at UCR.
  
  Instructors are encouraged to remind students to submit a course evaluation through in class reminders, emails, and announcements on iLearn.
  
  Instructors may wish to consider including iEval information on the course syllabus such as the link to iEval and the dates that the system will be available.

• What is the history of the development of the format of the evaluations?

  In Fall 2006, UCR began to use the new Academic Senate approved UCR Faculty Instruction Evaluation Form. This form is the standard form that is used by the entire campus. It encompasses course information, self-reported academic behavior (like study time), instructor appraisal, course appraisal, department specific issues, and student comments. The scale of the form is 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Minutes of the Senate Committee Meeting approving the revised course evaluation may be found at the Academic Senate's web site (Senate Agenda 5/30/06).
  
  In Fall 2009, the UCR Academic Senate endorsed the campus move to online evaluations via iEval. The Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Office of Instructional Development coordinated the transition.