Here at Flinders, our underlying ethos centres students in all that we do. This includes encouraging student voices, empowering students as partners, and allowing for the provision of timely and meaningful feedback.
A project team are currently working to enhance the student feedback experience by moving our Student Evaluation of Teaching mechanism (SET) to a new technology platform which integrates directly with Canvas.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
The new technology is called ‘Watermark Course Evaluation & Surveys’. Embedded directly within Canvas, it will provide everyone with an easy-to-use topic evaluation system that offers a simpler, more streamlined experience for both students and staff.
Our current SET process, which requires users to move between multiple systems, has resulted in an average response rate of just 24%. We’re expecting significant improvements to these response rates once the survey tool is embedded directly into Canvas. Streamlining notifications, reports and the survey itself should help to increase responses thus providing better quality data to support colleges and academics in planning and delivering the best value experience to our students. Other universities who’ve made this switch have achieved significant increases in their survey response rates.
WHEN IS THIS HAPPENING?
The timeframes for this project are tight, as the University must retire the old SET technology before the end of this year. The project team are currently building and testing the technology ready for a full release in late September for the next main round of surveys at the end of semester 2.
FURTHER INFORMATION AND SUPPORT
Further details including dates, access, training and more, will be provided to impacted staff and students in the coming weeks. If you have any questions or require support, please reach out to the IDS Project Manager jeremy.keisman@flinders.edu.au. The project team thank you for your support as this project moves quickly ahead, and as we continue our efforts to enhance our student offerings.