We may be able to provide access to evaluation results for those who have faculty oversight responsibilities, or who assist those with oversight responsibility.  For  For example, department chairs, program directors, college deans , as well as and their respective administrative assistants , may request access to view evaluations for courses they oversee. Access is specifically limited to courses for which their oversight extends , and requires approval from the chair or dean. 

In order to To request access, we need to know the following information:

1. Approximately how long

1. you will need access

1. .

2. Are you replacing someone who previously had this access?

1.  If so, please include their name so we can remove their access.

2. Describe the set of courses to which you need access.

1.  Be as specific as possible.

1. Here are a few examples: 

   1. All

1. 1. courses in the XYZ department

   2. All undergraduate courses with the CARM prefix

Please fill out this administrative access request form: Request Administrative Access to Blue (Help Desk Request Form).

Account access requests should have approval from the department chair, dean, or immediate manager.   If access is requested to for courses managed in a different department or college, we will also need approval from that chair or dean.  Thank you for your help.  We want to make sure that your, and your colleagues’, confidentiality is protected. 

Boise State Policy 4290, Annual Faculty Performance Evaluation, requires that student course evaluations be among the evidence of teaching quality provided for annual performance evaluations.  Similarly, Policy 4340, Faculty Tenure and Promotion Guidelines , likewise require requires teaching evaluations for P&T promotion and tenure decisions.   However, departments and colleges place different amounts of weight on course evaluations in personnel decisions. Also, note that faculty positions include research and service responsibilities , in addition to teaching.   To understand how course evaluations are incorporated into personnel reviews in your area, please see contact your department chair or dean.  

Policy 4220 regarding Adjunct Faculty adjunct faculty is not specific about the criteria and methods for reviewing re-hiring decisions.  Please  Please discuss with your department chairpersonchair. 

There are two categories of questions: standard and instructor - added.  

Standard questions are determined by academic programs , and applied consistently from semester to semester.  Most and approved by the provost. Most colleges or departments have their standard questions applied across the board to their classes. And there may courses. There might be standard questions applied to all sections of a course or set of courses. In addition to college or department standard question sets, some standard question sets are applied to classes courses that share a certain class characteristic.  All  For example, all online, honors, and service-learning classes courses receive special question sets developed by those offices.  

To change standard questions, whoever manages the class(es) and its questions should  make a request to the HelpDesk.  Changes need to be finalized in the prior semester. Institutional Research will work with you to the course manager should seek the provost’s approval and submit the approval including changes as a help desk ticket. Changes need to be approved in advance of the next academic year. Institutional Research can help you develop reliable questions that effectively address teaching and learning issues relevant to your program.

Instructor-added questions are owned by the instructor and are applied to a specific classcourse section.  These  These are often used to obtain feedback on a particularly difficult part of the class course or on a novel teaching approach being tried out.  The instructor may change these at any time during the semester they will be used up to the start of the course evaluation period. 

Your class course section may have a problem with the instructors listed.  Perhaps  Perhaps an extra co-instructor is included (or excluded).  Or  or the wrong incorrect instructor is shownlisted.  Course  Course evaluations usually should list only the “Primary” instructor(s) primary instructor or instructors as listed in PeopleSoft for the class evaluation.  “Secondary” . Secondary instructors—those who have assistance, supervisory, or coordination responsibility—are not listed as course instructors for evaluation purposes.

If you or a co-instructor has direct instruction responsibility for a course and is not listed for the evaluation, please contact helpdesk@boisestate.edu immediately.  It  It is vital that problems with instructor listings be addressed in PeopleSoft.  If  If you are not directly instructing the course , instructor but need access to course results as part your oversight responsibility, please let us knowsubmit a help desk ticket.

A second common problem occurs with Lab lab instructors.   In some classescourses, lab instructors are not scheduled for specific sections until after the class course starts.  We  We have an alternative way to address these lab situations, so please let us know submit a help desk ticket if you are having encounter difficulties with lab instructor assignments.

Policy 4300 states, “The instruction of courses, including those taught by adjunct faculty and graduate assistants, will be evaluated by students in every section of every course, in every semester, and in summer.”  In all, well over 90% of all credit bearing classes are evaluated by Bronco CourseEval (BCE).   However, courses can be intentionally excluded, Courses can be excluded from evaluation at the request of the department , if they courses fall into one of the following categories:

1. Courses

1. evaluated by external (non-Boise State) entities are excluded.

2. Dissertation and

1. thesis courses

1. are excluded because they are composed of a single student, and anonymity

1. cannot be protected.

2. Independent study, practicum, and research type courses are sometimes excluded because they are not instructor-led courses.

1. In some cases they are included

1. where more appropriate questions were developed,

1. as is the case for internship courses.  

See here for list of Courses courses excluded from evaluation by the Provost’s Office (Google Doc)Office of the Provost.

If you have questions about why a course was excluded , or why it was NOT not excluded, please contact the HelpDesk and we will research the answer for you.  Similarly, contact us submit a help desk ticket. Submit a help desk ticket if you wan to request that a given course or set of courses be routinely excluded or included in the evaluations. Requests to change course exclusions should be approved by the chair of the department which that owns the course.