Teaching Evaluations
Students will be asked to complete teaching evaluations at the end of each semester. These evaluations are important in a number of ways: to help instructors improve course content and structure; to aid instructors in refining their teaching skills; and as one aspect of promotion and tenure consideration, annual reviews, and salary determination.
Types of Evaluations
Classroom Teaching
Most evaluations will be completed during the last two weeks of classes using the campus-wide Online Course Questionnaire (OCQ). Summary reports for the OCQ will be available online for faculty several weeks after the end of the semester. Students will also have access to an online portal containing data for certain course-specific questions.
Studio Teaching
The JSoM Private Instruction Evaluation (PIE) is used to evaluate all one-on-one performance and composition instruction in the school. This is an online evaluation designed to take into account the unique parameters and challenges of studio teaching. Summary reports for the PIE will be available online for faculty several weeks after the end of the semester.
Chamber Music / Coaching
All coaching activities in the JSoM are evaluated using an online survey tailored to the instructional experience of each type of coaching (chamber music, piano accompanying, vocal coaching, etc.). All survey administration and report generation is coordinated by the Office of the Associate Dean for Instruction.
Ensembles
Ensembles are evaluated using paper forms and may be evaluated at the end of a semester or following each individual concert. Reports are manually produced by the Office of the Associate Dean for Instruction and include a quantitative summary of data and all student comments.
Finding Your Evaluation Reports
All reports for the Online Course Questionnaire and PIE can be accesed via the OCQ Dashboard (https://coursequestionnaire.iu.edu). Log in using your IU username and passphrase and choose the appropriate year from the dropdown menu on the homepage.
All reports for evaluations administered by the Office of Associate Dean for Instruction (PIE for AIs, chamber music/coaching, ensembles) are distributed via shared Google Drive folders.
Department chairs can access all reports for faculty in their departments by logging into Google Drive and searching for a folder titled "<Name of Department> course evaluations."
If you have trouble accessing any of your reports, please contact Sherri Bishop, Assistant to the Associate Dean for Instruction.
Related Policies
The School of Music Council has approved a series of recommendations regarding the evaluation of teaching in the Jacobs School of Music to clarify the ways in which evaluations are administered and used in faculty review processes:
- Every semester the results of the OCQ are delivered to the instructor and department chair (or supervisor). They are also available to the Associate Dean for Instruction and to the Dean of the Jacobs School of Music.
- The OCQ, which is intended to be non-punitive, will be used in the JSOM to identify strengths and weaknesses and provide feedback and support for faculty to deliver the best possible instruction to students.
- By campus mandate all OCQ results/comments and all summaries of paper form evaluations and comments are included in tenure and promotion dossiers, for use by IUB committees only.
- Faculty may choose to have the OCQ results used by other JSOM committees (e.g. salary review groups) and/or by external evaluators for tenure and promotion.
- As mentioned in the BFC policy (point #1) the questions on the OCQ are only one component of the overall evaluation of teaching. The JSOM Faculty Issues Committee recommends that all questions on the OCQ be weighted equally, as they all provide useful information in determining teaching effectiveness.
- The Faculty Issues Committee recommends that department chairs and other evaluators look for commonalities in student responses and not place undue emphasis on complaints or extreme praise from single students. Also important are trends in student responses over several semesters, and the faculty member’s response over time to student comments.
- All OCQ data made available to supervisors and administrators will also be made available to the instructor at the instructor’s request.
(CPD 1516-08; approved 12/3/2015)