Online testing support is available in Ambler-Johnston and Torgersen labs. These facilities may be scheduled for administration of online tests. For more information, contact Rob Dickert: rdickert@vt.edu or call 1-4810.
Create and administer surveys online with http://survey.vt.edu/
College and department staff can save considerable time by administering evaluations online. Other universities using these systems have found that faculty and students also appreciate saving class time that used to be devoted to filling out paper forms. Students often produce more thoughtful responses and value the confidentiality the computer offers over hand-written comments, while faculty find it much easier to read them in a typed format rather than in hand-written format.
Faculty often express concern that online evaluations are not comparable to paper-based opscans. Studies at other schools have not found consistent differences, and there has been no predominance of negative comments. Another concern is response rate, but periodic e-mail prompting and early attention to ensuring that students understand the importance of participation and the value placed on it by faculty and administrators can improve response rate considerably. It is worth noting that Testing & Data Services often sees opscans that have no marks or marks in decorative patterns that indicate the student had no interest in completing the evaluation, so a higher response rate doesn't necessarily produce good data.
The online system offers the following advantages:
Evaluation results from the online system are integrated with the legacy paper evaluation system so that all data from both systems are stored in a secure database. Student responses are confidential. The online system prevents multiple responses from students and is designed with safeguards for confidentiality and authentication of responses.
During the 2009-10 academic year, the legacy (paper) evaluation system will continue in limited production mode for departmental use. There will also be evaluation conducted on a new Sakai course evaluation tool, which will eventually be integrated into Scholar.
For more information, please contact Online Learning and Collaboration Services (OLCS): http://www.olcs.lt.vt.edu/ ; (540) 231-8991.