New course evaluations begin this semester

This semester, we are excited to be launching “SELFI”, the new Student Evaluation of Learning and Feedback for Instructors!

“I am absolutely delighted to have reached this SELFI milestone,” said Thomas DiLorenzo, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.  “It will continue to bring the University forward with best practices in quality teaching and learning.  Thank you to all those who have contributed their time and effort toward it, particularly members of the SETIC Committee.”

The University is moving forward with this new online teaching evaluation instrument which replaces the traditional paper-based USAT. It comes after a rigorous two-year process, with approvals from University Senate, Chairs Leadership Institute (CLI), Deans, and endorsement from the Vice President of Academic Affairs Office.

SELFI information will come directly from Campus Connection and all Instructors will be involved in the evaluation system. In certain situations, and for this semester only, faculty members may ask students to fill out both the USAT and the SELFI evaluations. Any faculty member wanting to administer the USAT this semester, alongside the SELFI, should contact both their Department Chair and their Department Contact prior to Nov. 18.  As with past evaluations, Department Contacts will order and distribute USAT forms for these courses.

Getting started with SELFI is easy as the evaluation process is automated.  Here’s an example of how SELFI will work for a full-term course.  For courses that are not full-term, dates will be adjusted according to the duration/number of days of the course.

• Four weeks prior to the end of a full-term course, Instructors will receive an email inviting them to add, if they wish, up to three custom questions to the set of core questions that appear on their course SELFIs.  These custom questions allow Instructors the ability to collect additional information about their courses.  The email will contain instructions on how to add the questions.
• Two weeks prior to the end of the full-term course, students will receive an automated email inviting them to take the online evaluation for each of their courses.  They will have two weeks to do so.

Although students will complete the online SELFI using any smart device or computer, Instructors are encouraged to allot class time during the last week of class for completion of the evaluation; this is a proven practice to significantly increase student response rates.  The SELFI system is setup to automatically send reminders to students who have not yet completed their course evaluations.

There are some great perks from using this new instrument and delivery mechanism:  Instructors will receive a detailed report that has more psychometric information than the previous sheets received with USAT results, and Instructors will receive reports via email much sooner than received with USAT data.

While we are happy to answer any questions about the new SELFI, the following web site is an excellent source for more information including FAQ’s for Instructors, Department Contacts, and Chairs:  (http://und.edu/research/institutional-research/selfi/).  Alternatively, please feel free to contact us by email at selfi@und.edu or by phone at 701-777-4358.
— Members of the SETIC Committee

• Andrew Quinn, Chair, Social Work (CNPD)
• Linda Ray, Medical Laboratory Science (SMHS)
• Robert Stupnisky, Education Foundations & Research (CEHD)
• Jodi Steiner, Institutional Research
• Blake Andert, Student Government, Undergraduate Student (CoBPA)
• Melissa Gjellstad,  SEC, Modern & Classical Languages & Literatures (A&S)
• Dana Harsell, SEC, Political Science & Public Administration (CoBPA)