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	notjo 2008-04-30 08:53 pm UTC (link)
	You mean, on the internet? Cuz we do class evals every semester that are just handed into the office. Having worked at universities, I'm pretty sure these things are completely ignored. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bemysty 2008-04-30 09:40 pm UTC (link)
	Not always. One of my lectures got fired for her evaluation scores (which were... well. 5.3 out of a 1.0 to 6.0 scale). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	panthea 2008-05-01 03:04 am UTC (link)
	So, uh, is 6.0 good or bad? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rikiki 2008-05-01 03:21 am UTC (link)
	Bad, in Germany, iirc. Made of fail, even. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	florence_craye 2008-05-01 05:47 pm UTC (link)
	Interesting! In my uni (US), they go from 1-5. 5 being highest and best. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	bemysty 2008-05-01 08:16 am UTC (link)
	6.0 = worst. In class work, 4.0 would be the last passing grade. And in the evaluations, people are generally very, very fair, so you can imagine how much fail this lecturer was made of to get that bad an average shoved down her throat. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jat_sapphire 2008-05-02 03:29 am UTC (link)
	And in the evaluations, people are generally very, very fair, You're making me want to teach in Germany. NOT THAT I'M BITTER OR ANYTHING. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	agent_hyatt 2008-04-30 09:40 pm UTC (link)
	I've gotten into the habit of just circling numbers and not writing any comments. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	pepperlandgirl4 2008-04-30 09:54 pm UTC (link)
	Having been subjected to a few, I'm pretty sure they're not. (Reply to this)(Parent)

julian_black
2008-04-30 11:19 pm UTC (link)

They don't get ignored if you're a lecturer or a tenure-track professor.

One possible reason Venkatisan is back working as a lab rat instead of teaching Freshman writing courses is because her course evals were so bad. There's so many newly-minted PhDs out there looking for jobs, who would love to have Dartmouth on their CV--so there's no need to keep bad adjuncts on staff.

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	mary_mac 2008-04-30 11:27 pm UTC (link)
	They get noticed at ours. Rather intensely discussed at module evaluations, actually. Has at least once descended into a blazing row, and resulted in a moratorium on the Drama/English cross-school modules for a while. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	waitwut 2008-05-01 02:26 am UTC (link)
	They figure into promotion, re-hire, AND annual raise time at my U. We had a tenure-track assistant professor say "oops, I was supposed to keep them?! Who knew!" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rikiki 2008-05-01 03:24 am UTC (link)
	At my school the instructors aren't even in the room when the eval is done, and it gets dropped off at a central location in each building, so there's no issue of the instructors losing the papers or anything. This is just a technical college, too (though it is the third largest tertiary school in state). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	waitwut 2008-05-01 03:26 am UTC (link)
	Well, the faculty don't touch them after handing them out to the students. They come back to us, we send them to the Magic Processing Place where they process and add them all up... then we pass them back to the faculty to keep (especially as student comments aren't figured in to the overall scoring). Departments then request copies for review time. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

florence_craye
2008-05-01 05:51 pm UTC (link)

At my university, a student from each class brings back the envelope of evaluations. Faculty aren't allowed to touch or see them after being filled. The sheets are sent to the magic computer place where the scores are tallied. Then the low-level admin assistants (like me) type all the handwritten comments for the faculty. One copy of the comments and scores are given to the faculty, and one is filed in the admin office away from prying eyes. I assume the originals are shredded.

So, likely, the evals are only being read by other faculty during tenure review time. The office keeps a copy because faculty never seem to hold onto records very well here.

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	waitwut 2008-05-01 05:54 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, well, some days I do wonder how faculty make it out of the house dressed (which is also why there is a "homeless or tenured" square on a bingo game around campus). We expect faculty to keep them and we don't keep any other record of student comments... that's their call! (And their promotion and their pay raises) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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