Evaluations are open for students in the last 14 days of each course (fall and spring) or last seven days or each course (summer and J-term/intersession).

• While course evaluations are being administered, you should use class time to emphasize the importance of this process.
• Check the response rate and remind students if the response rate is low. The instructions to check the response rate are mentioned below.

The majority of courses taught at VCU are evaluated using Explorance Blue, with the exception of units that have not adopted the software and some courses with specific schedule properties.

Courses with the following schedule codes are evaluated using Explorance Blue: LEC (lectures), LAB (labs), SEM (seminars), LLB (lecture & labs), WSP (workshops), STU (studios), CLN (clinics)

Some exceptions:

• CLN classes are NOT evaluated in the RADS department.
• Courses with schedule type PRA (practicums) are evaluated ONLY at the Qatar campus, Nursing college, and GRTY and HHAD departments.
• Courses with schedule type IND (independent studies) are evaluated ONLY in the RADS department.
• Courses with schedule type FLD (fieldwork) are evaluated ONLY at the Qatar campus and college of Social Work. 

IRDS does not choose the questions used for course evaluations. We use the questionnaire provided to us by your school or department. However, please note that the current Course Eval Redesign Project will introduce new questions as indicated in the spring 2025 Assessing Teaching Effectiveness Committee Report. 

Additional questions cannot be added to your questionnaire due to the current redesign. 

For fall and spring courses, the evaluations are available for the last two weeks of classes. For summer courses, the evaluations are available for the last seven days of class. 

We send students an email when the evaluations start. After that, students who have not completed their evaluations get regular reminders.

Instructors will receive an email alert a few days before evaluations open. 

Students receive an automated email with a direct link to their evaluation system. They can use this link to access their evaluation forms.

Evaluations close before final exams begin. In most cases, students will complete evaluations before they take their final exam or get their final grade.

If you are concerned about final grades affecting your course evaluations, please post student grades after evaluations for the course are closed.

Visit the Blue website to see the number of students who have completed their evaluations.

• Have a discussion with your students regarding the value of the survey and how it is used to evaluate faculty and improve teaching effectiveness. 
• If students in your class bring laptops to class, you can give them some time at the end of class to complete the evaluations on their computers.

Course evaluations are anonymous. The course evaluation software has been designed to conceal the identity of the students from their instructor. Students may not be comfortable revealing that they have completed the evaluations. Instead, you can use some of the tips mentioned above to improve the response rate.

Reports are made available for each course two weeks after the evaluation for that course ends. You will receive an automated email once reports become available.

1. Visit https://go.vcu.edu/eval
2. If prompted, sign in with your eID and password
3. Click the folder next to the term you want to download reports for
4. Click the PDF icon next to the course you'd like to view

Each report has a PDF link. This link can be used to save a PDF version of the report.

The report includes aggregate results for each question in the form. You can view them by numbers or as percentages. The reports will also include any comments for open ended questions that students have responded to.

• Reports DO NOT include any personally identifiable information, including  who filled out the course evaluation form and what they filled in.
• For team-taught courses, the reports do not include the results for your co-instructor in those courses.

Normally the department chair or dean of a school has access to the reports within their department or school. They can also request that other administrative users be granted access to these reports.

No, you cannot access evaluation data for other instructors.

To protect student anonymity, reports are only generated for courses with at least five total responses. If you are certain you received more than five responses from students, but still haven’t received your report, please email courseeval@vcu.edu for more assistance.

If you need help with the online course evaluations, the quickest way to contact us is via email at courseeval@vcu.edu. Please include your name, phone number, eID, and the CRN for the evaluation you are having trouble with.

The evaluation period is shortened to seven days for all Summer term courses and J-term/intersession courses (courses with section numbers starting with “V” or “J”). All other courses have a 14-day evaluation period.

For team-taught or multi-instructor courses, students see one section of course questions and another section of instructor questions for each instructor. Each instructor can see responses to course questions and their own instructor questions, but not the responses to the other instructor's questions. 

If a course is cross-listed, students will only see the name of the course they're enrolled in, and instructors will be able to see a merged report containing complete results for the cross-listed course. Reports will be distributed based on the total enrollment across all sections.