Implemented during Summer term, the College's online system of course evaluations has seen approximately 80 percent of students completing the evaluations during the last two terms, Dean of Faculty Carol Folt said.
The new system, which obliges students to either complete an evaluation or decline participation in order to view their grades, appears to have caused fewer students to participate in Student Assembly's online course evaluation guide, a service that provides detailed course information for students choosing classes.
The new college course evaluations are standardized across departments and largely replaced paper evaluations, which were designed by individual professors or departments and were completed in the classroom. The evaluations are submitted to individual departments and, unlike the Assembly guide, can't be read by students.
At the end of Fall term 2005, for example, nine percent of Anthropology 6 students -- seven of them -- completed evaluations for the class, but only one evaluation was completed for the same course after the fall of 2006. Last term only 10 of the 423 students taking Math 8 completed evaluations. In the Fall term of 2005, however, 24 students submitted reviews, even though 173 fewer students were taking the course that term than in the Fall term of 2006.
Adam Shpeen '07, former Student Assembly vice president of academic affairs, believes the similarities between the two are partly responsible for the reduction in the Assembly evaluations.
"At some point students just get tired of evaluating their courses. And because the course guide sort of comes last in the series of evaluations, it's the least likely to be used," Shpeen said.
Student response appears to support Shpeen's claim.
"I didn't fill out an SA course [evaluation] because I had to fill out the BannerStudent one," Denise Hasson '09 said. "The fact of the matter is that I didn't want to fill any of them out, so having to do one meant I definitely wasn't going to do the second."
Nicole Kurtzeborn '09 also said that the BannerStudent evaluations deterred her from filling out the Assembly course guide one.
"Having to fill out the BannerStudent course [evaluations] definitely made me not want to do the SA ones as well, but I decided to anyway because I really appreciate when classes I'm looking into taking have helpful comments," Kurtzeborn said.
Shpeen said that the Assembly no longer offers students prize incentives for completing evaluations, which may also contribute to the participation decline, although neither Shpeen nor student body president Tim Andreadis '07 were able to confirm when prizes were discontinued or whether incentives were offered in Fall term 2005.
In response to the decline in participation in the Assembly course guide, Folt said that the online evaluations are part of a pilot program, and "student opinion will also be solicited on this and other issues."
According to Shpeen, an effort to involve professors in improving the Assembly course guide has failed because the faculty have failed to show sufficient interest.
"Several faculty members don't like the course guide because of the content that students post," he said. "It borders on defamation. The problem is that the professors don't have an outlet to respond to that as the course guide currently stands."
Shpeen said that the ideal common ground would make the anonymous course evaluations public to students and faculty, eliminating the need for the Assembly course guide.
According to Folt, the material provided by students in the College's online evaluations has been substantive.
"Feedback from a number of faculty at Dartmouth so far has been that students generally are providing thoughtful and useful feedback," she said.
However, some professors -- among them, English department chair Gretchen Gerzina -- still prefer the original paper evaluations.
"I do know that a number of my colleagues miss the narrative form, which they found extremely useful," Gerzina said.
But other faculty members, like English professor Cleopatra Mathis, saw the upsides of the new system.
"I do like the fact that it doesn't take up valuable class time," Mathis said. "Especially that last class when you're scrambling to get that last little bit of everything in."
