Contact the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation for assistance with the Blue and student course experience surveys.

The default survey will consist of 3 components:

Brock University Global Questions: at the recommendation of the Ad Hoc Committee on Teaching Evaluation at the April 2, 2019 meeting of Senate, the following questions have been included on all course Surveys:

1. I found the course engaging. (Likert rating)
2. The course deepened my understanding of the subject
   matter. (Likert rating)
3. The instructor fostered a respectful learning environment.
   (Likert rating)
4. I had a positive experience in this course. (Likert rating)
5. What aspects of the course did you find most engaging?
   (open-ended)
6. What would enhance your learning experience in this
   course? (open-ended)

Questions from your Academic Unit: the same questions that appear within the form that your program has distributed for course evaluation purposes previous to participating in the Student Course Experience Survey.

Personalized Questions: the course Instructor is provided with an opportunity to include up to 5 likert-style or open-response questions.

Students will be contacted directly by Brock email when the survey for your course becomes active. That message will include a link to the survey system. Students may complete the form in stages if that’s their preference, as the form will automatically submit when the closing date arrives.

Students are also able to visit all of their surveys via the Course Surveys link in the main menu of Brightspace.

Consider these strategies to enhance student engagement (or response rate) with the Survey:

• If applicable, take a few minutes in one of your class sessions to discuss the Survey with students and answer any questions they may have. Highlight that the survey is confidential and that you as course instructor will not be able to view results until decisions about final course grades have already been made.
  • Providing direct links to the Survey and then time during class to complete it is the best way to ensure responses
• In asynchronous courses, remind students via Brightspace through:
  • an Announcement that the survey is upcoming
  • a checklist item that relates to the Survey in the final week or module of the course
• Outline to your students that you’ll read these responses and use the feedback to improve the course when it’s delivered next

Course Instructors will automatically gain first ownership of Survey results for all components of their courses (lectures, seminars, tutorials, etc.) and can choose to download and share results with seminar leaders.

Academic units that wish for seminar leaders to have direct access to results can work with their Academic Coordinator and CPI early in a term to input information about seminar leaders.

Yes. Each academic unit can use one Survey form for primary course components (often the lecture component) and a different Survey form for seminar, tutorial, or lab course components.

Note that the option to add up to 5 personalized questions to a Survey is an excellent opportunity to address unique aspects of a course’s delivery.

Possibly not. Each academic unit is able to use one Survey form for all primary course components. If your courses are all identified as using the same subject or department code (“KINE” or “LING”, for example), only one departmental / centre Survey form is available.

It is certainly possible to use a different form for seminar, tutorial, or lab components of such courses.

Note that the option to add up to 5 personalized questions to a Survey is an excellent opportunity to address a unique aspect of a course’s delivery.

The online Student Course Experience Survey System is only able to track results that it collects directly. Academic units which have made previous use of paper-based course evaluation must use methods of results retention and distribution that are outside of the Survey system and are appropriate to the unit.

CPI maintains records of each program’s participation in online Student Course Experience Surveys adoption level, program contacts, and if the department or program has specific surveys for secondaries (Labs, Seminars, Tutorials), and related details.

Instructors can check this information in their Brightspace site in the Course Surveys (Blue) item in the course menu.

Anyone can check on a program’s basic Student Course Experience Surveys practices inside or help documents.

Please contact the CPI about updates to these practices.

The Student Course Experience Survey system respects the BUFA Collective Agreement Article 12.07 (d), which makes clear that “experience surveys are not public documents and are the property of the instructor”. Results are to be made available to BUFA course instructors for whom the Survey was undertaken.

The system also respects the CUPE 4207 unit 1 Collective Agreement Article 18.03 which outlines that “when student course experience surveys are completed regarding a bargaining unit member, the results of such surveys will be provided to the member upon request”.  Results created for courses delivered by CUPE course instructors will automatically be released in the same fashion. For participating departments, this also includes Teaching Assistants, Tutorial Leaders, and Lab Demonstrators. Other academic units may make results available through redistribution by the course instructor or other coordinators. CUPE 4207-related reports can be made available to an academic units’ administration upon request to the CPI.

Instructors can always access results for current and past courses that utilized the Blue survey system by accessing Blue directly while their Brock University computer account is active.

Instructors that have left Brock and no longer have access to their account may contact the Academic Coordinator, Program Director or Department Chair to inquire about having results forwarded.

The BUFA Collective Agreement establishes in Articles 16.03 (i) and 16.04 (i) that modifications to evaluation instruments are determined by Departmental or Centre Committees. While the CPI works with academic units and their Academic Coordinator during redevelopment of evaluation instruments, instructors are required to use the program that is offering the course’s core form.

Note that the option to add up to 5 personalized questions to a Survey is an excellent opportunity to address a unique aspect of a course’s delivery.

It is currently not possible for academic units offering courses taught by BUFA members to access departmental averages via the Survey system. BUFA Collective Agreement Articles 16.03 (i) and 16.04 (i) do not extend to modifications to methods of an academic unit’s course evaluation reporting, an implementation of which might include the reporting of results averages across courses or instructors.

This does not affect the ability of instructors to access results of Surveys of courses that an instructor personally offered.

The BUFA Collective Agreement establishes in Articles 16.03 (i) and 16.04 (i) that surveys will be conducted for “courses with enrollments of five (5) or more students using the electronic survey tool designated by the University for this purpose.”

The option for an instructor to opt out of the online Student Course Experience Surveys is available and intended for situations where Brock University’s records to do not reflect the pedagogy of the course. For example, a graduate thesis course with a dozen students effectively enrolled would be technically included in the survey process, but if there were multiple instructors supervising students individually, the effect would be an instructor student ratio of less than 1:5, effectively 1:1. In this example, and in similar circumstances, it could be appropriate to opt a course out of the Student Course Experience Surveys system.

Instructors can opt out of a Survey by following the opt out instructions in our documentation.