The latest important milestone of technology to be introduced at
St. John's University starting this fall is Class Climate, an
online course evaluation system. It is already employed at a number
of colleges throughout the country and offers a wide range of
benefits for students, faculty, and administrators. Here at
St. John’s, the Office of Institutional Research (OIR) will
administer the new system. Dr. Marie E. Mark, the Assistant
Director of Assessment Support in OIR, is the contact person for
this project and can be reached at markm@stjohns.edu or (718)
990-6998.
The online course evaluation form comprises 26-scaled and three
open-ended questions and was developed by a committee of St. John’s
faculty members. Moreover, the new form is flexible, in that
instructors have the option of adding as many as five of their own
questions (closed- or open-ended), unlike the paper-based SIR II,
which could not be customized. In fact, the new system will capture
the typed-in responses to open-ended questions.
There are several other advantages associated with the new
system for instructors. One major benefit is that instructors
will no longer have to allocate class time for course evaluation
completion because students will fill them out on their own
time. Also, students can take as much time as they want to
complete them, thereby generating more thoughtful comments than the
traditional paper-and-pencil method. And, given how tech-savvy
students are, the new online course evaluation system seems to be a
logical next step for St. John’s.
Another benefit is that the results will be analyzed much faster
than those from paper and pencil administrations. Consequently,
course instructors will be able to effect timely changes to their
courses, thereby leading to improvements in teaching and
learning. Additionally, there will be significant reductions
in the costs associated with paper-form course evaluation. These
costs include the purchase of paper as well as those associated
with the administrative processing of paper forms.