Class Climate

Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) between the campus community and ITS to document:

• Procedures and requirements for requesting a web-based course evaluation
• Procedures for support of Class Climate surveys

Service Description

Class Climate is the campus enterprise online course evaluation system. Departments will provide evaluation questions which will be put into an electronic format by ITS. Students will be invited to complete the evaluation through emails sent automatically by the system. Results of evaluations will be sent to department chairs and their designees.

Roles & Responsibilities

Evaluation Preparation & Creation

Departments will send a list of questions (scaled, single answer, multiple answer, or free response) to ITS through evals@uww.edu. Departments may reuse previous questionnaires and are encouraged to use the same questionnaire department wide. Departments will also identify participating instructors and courses.

Department Chair Responsibilities:

• Following all university policies and requirements for evaluation question formation.
• Submitting questions in an electronic format.
• Proofreading question requests for spelling and grammar.
• Submitting list of participating instructors and courses.
• Identifing which questions belong to which courses, if multiple sets of questions are used.
• Selecting desired evaluation deployment time period from available options.

ITS Responsibilities:

• Converting department questions into Class Climate questionnaires.
• Providing a mechanism for instructor-generated questions to be added to the departmental questions for a particular course.
• Importing PeopleSoft information for identified courses into Class Climate.
• Building and configuring Class Climate surveys for each participating course.
• Maintaining the Class Climate hosting infrastructure and software licensing to ensure reliability and capacity for all participating faculty and departments.

Evaluation Deployment

Students will be emailed an invitation to participate in an electronic evaluation of their course and its instructor. Students should follow the instructions in the email invitation to access and complete the online evaluation survey. During the evaluation window, reminders will be sent to students who have not yet completed the evaluations.

Support for students will be provided by the Helpdesk. Students can call 472-4357 or email helpdesk@uww.edu during normal business hours

Department/Instructor Responsibilities:

• Encourage student participation in the evaluation process.
• Make students aware of the evaluation window for responding to the survey.

Student Responsibilities:

• Complete course evaluations appropriately.
• Contact Helpdesk for assistance, if needed.

ITS Responsibilities:

• Ensuring the appropriate distribution of the online surveys to students in participating courses and resolving any technical issues that might occur in the distribution.
• Phone support to troubleshoot minor issues.

Report Delivery

Department Chairs will receive a single PDF file via email containing all of the reports for their department. This same file can also be sent to the department assistant upon request of Department Chair. Instructors can receive reports for their courses upon approval by the Department Chair. These reports are delivered within two business days of grades becoming available to students.

The reports contain the response totals for each question and the typed answers for free response questions. Results for single and multiple choice questions are displayed in a bar graph format. Results for scaled questions are shown in a histogram format and will include the following statistics: Mean, Median, and Standard Deviation.

Additionally, a report of student respondents of a given course evaluation may be requested. These reports will be delivered to the requesting instructor within two business days of the end of the evaluation window. Requests to customize reports will be considered and evaluated based on the complexity of the modification and cost to implement.

Department Chair Responsibilities:

• Request additional report distribution, if desired.

ITS Responsibilities:

• Generate and send a PDF file containing reports to each Department Chair.
• Send reports to additional recipients, as requested by Department Chairs.
• Upon request, provide a list of student respondents for each course to instructors at the end of the evaluation period.
• Provide a summary report to the Assistant Provost’s office which includes the participation and response percentages for the semester.

Requesting Service

Service Acquisition

Departments wanting to participate in using Class Climate should send a request to evals@uww.edu.

In Scope Services

• Creation, deployment and reporting of Class Climate Evaluations
• Managing Class Climate system infrastructure
• Student support for taking surveys
• Delivery of results to departments

Out of Scope Services

• Developing questions to be used in course evaluations.
• Checking for spelling, grammar, or compliance with university policies.

All service requests shall be made to the Helpdesk (472-4357). Service will be prioritized on a three level scale.

Impact Level 2 and 3 service requests will be handled during normal business hours. If a department/division does not receive a contact within the specified time for their Impact Level, an email should be sent to sla-ITS@uww.edu.

Hours of Coverage and Escalation Procedures

Students should use the Helpdesk for questions about responding to the course evaluation surveys that cannot be answered by the instructor. Phone: 472-HELP (472-4357) or helpdesk@uww.edu.

The hours during academic sessions are:

Monday-Thursday: 8 AM - 9 PM

Fridays: 8 AM - 4:30 PM

(Check Get Help for summer and extended hours.)

Fees and Expenses

Departments will be charged $.07/survey distributed to students.