A course evaluation is an anonymous form you fill out at the end of a course to provide feedback about your instructor and different aspects of the course. The questions vary from school to school but generally collect the same kind of information. 

Available for two weeks
With online evaluations, students can spend more time providing thoughtful feedback. Evaluations are available 24/7, for a two week period at the end of each fall and spring semester, and seven days during summer and J-term/intersession.

Anonymous
Online course evaluations are completely anonymous. Your instructor can’t see who filled out the form or what information was provided by an individual student. They only see the aggregate results for each question.

Course evaluation may seem like a formality, but it is an important tool to maintain and improve the quality of VCU's classes.

Course evaluations help faculty plan and improve the courses they will teach in the future. Faculty can modify/improve the syllabus, their teaching style, assignments, quizzes, office hours and more based on the feedback they receive from students. 

Faculty also have to report some of this data as part of their annual report. Evaluation reports are used by department chairs and deans when determining the promotion and tenure of your instructor. For administrators, course evaluation is an important source of information about your instructor's teaching, and is sometimes used to determine VCU's accreditation status.

Evaluations are available for most courses, but there are certain exceptions. Some units at VCU do not currently use Explorance Blue, and will provide your evaluations using their own system. For units using Explorance Blue, courses with schedule type LEC (lectures), LAB (labs), SEM (seminars), LLB (lecture & labs), WSP (workshops), STU (studios), or CLN (clinics) are evaluated.

Some exceptions:

• CLN classes (clinics) are NOT evaluated in the RADS department.
• Courses with schedule type PRA (practicums) are evaluated ONLY at the Qatar campus, School of Nursing, 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. 

Reports from course evaluations are shared with the instructor who taught the course, the department chair, and the dean of the school.

For fall and spring courses, the evaluations are available during the last two weeks of classes. For summer and J-term/intersession courses, the evaluations are available for the last seven days of class. 

We send you an email when the evaluations are available. We also send you reminder emails if you have not completed evaluations before the deadline.

It usually takes 5-10 minutes to complete each form. You can, of course, take more time to provide more detailed feedback.

Yes, you will be able to complete the evaluations just like a registered student.

Faculty see results two weeks after evaluations are closed to ensure that student grades have been submitted before reports are made available.

Evaluations are available only for a period of two weeks in fall/spring and seven days in summer/J-term/intersession. Once that period is over, you cannot complete the evaluations.

No, you can complete one evaluation at a time, though we recommend not delaying, as the evaluation period is only open for a brief amount of time.

No, you cannot save a partially completed evaluation.

Yes. The software we use for course evaluation has two layers built in to ensure anonymity:

1. As soon as you submit an evaluation, it stores your identity in one table and your responses in another and encrypts the link between the two.
2. When an instructor sees the reports, they only see aggregate results. The instructor will never see the identity of the student who submitted an evaluation.

Yes, your instructor can see your comments, but cannot see the name of the student who submitted them. When you write text comments, please do not include your name or information that might allow your instructor to uniquely identify you.

This is how comments appear on the evaluation report:

No. The software automatically encrypts this information and hides it from the instructor. Your instructor will never know whether you filled out an evaluation or what your specific responses were.

No. There is a period of two weeks between the end of the evaluation period and when your instructor sees the reports. All final grades will have been posted in eServices.

Just like we keep evaluations fair for students by keeping them anonymous, we also keep them fair for instructors. Logging in ensures that you are only completing evaluations for courses that you are enrolled in and that you are submitting only one evaluation per course.

If you don't see an evaluation link for a course, it could be because of one of the following:

• The evaluations for this course may not have started yet or might be over. 
• The course might be excluded from online evaluations because of our exclusion criteria (see exclusion criteria above).
• You might have filled it out already.
• You withdrew from the course.

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