Some anecdotes and data snippets from our first experience with the IDEA online course feedback system

Welcome to Winter Term! Maybe some of you saw the big snowflakes that fell on Sunday morning. Even though I know I am in denial, it is starting to feel like fall might have slipped from our collective grasp over the past weekend.

But on the bright side (can we get some warmth with that light?), during the week-long break between fall and winter term, something happened that had not happened since we switched to the IDEA course feedback system. Last Wednesday morning – only a 48 hours after you had entered your final grades, your IDEA course feedback was already processed and ready to view. All you had to do was log in to your faculty portal and check it out! (You can find the link to the IDEA Online Course Feedback Portal on your Arches faculty page).

I’m sure I will share additional observations and data points from our first experience with the online system this week during one of the three “Navigating your Online IDEA Feedback Report” sessions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday starting just after 4 PM in Olin 109. (A not so subtle hint – come to Olin 109 on Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday this week (Nov. 13, 14, and 16) at or just after 4 PM to walk through the online feedback reports and maybe one or two cool tricks with the data).  Bring a laptop if you’ve got one just in case we run out of computer terminals.

But in the meantime, I thought I’d share a couple of snippets that I found particularly interesting from our first online administration.

First, it seems that no news about problems logging in to the system turned out to be extremely good news. I was fully prepped to solve all kinds of connectivity issues and brainstorm all sorts of last-minute solutions. But I only heard from one person about one class having trouble getting on to the system . . . and that was when the internet was down all over campus for about 45 minutes. Otherwise, it appears that folks were able to administer the online course feedback forms in class or get their students to complete them outside of class with very little trouble. Even in the basement of Denkmann! This doesn’t mean that we won’t have some problems in the future, but at least with one term under our collective belt . . . maybe the connectivity issue isn’t nearly as big as we worried it might be.

Second, our overall student response rates were quite strong. Of the 467 course sections that could have administered IDEA online, about 74% of those course sections achieved a response rate of 75% or higher. Furthermore, several instructors tested what might happen if they asked students to complete the IDEA online outside of class (incentivized with an offer of extra credit to the class if the overall response rate reached a specific threshold). I don’t believe that any of these instructors’ classes failed to meet the established thresholds.

In addition, after a preliminary examination of comments that students provided, it appears that students actually may have written more comments with more detail than they previously provided on paper-and-pencil forms. This would seem to corroborate feedback from a few faculty members who indicated that their students were thankful that their comments would now be truly anonymous and no longer potentially identifiable given the instructor’s prior familiarity with the student’s handwriting.

Finally, in response to faculty concerns that the extended student access to their IDEA forms (i.e., students were able to enter data into their response forms until the end of finals no matter when they initially filled out their IDEA forms) might lead to students going back into the system and exacting revenge on instructors in response to a low grade on a final exam or paper, I did a little digging to see how likely this behavior might be. In talking to students about this option during week 10 of the term, I got two responses. Several international students said that they appreciated this flexibility because they had been unable to finish typing their comments in the time allotted in class. Since many international students (particular first-year international students) find that it takes them much longer than domestic students to express complex thoughts in written English. I also got the chance to ask a class of 35(ish) students whether or not they were likely to go back into the IDEA online system and change a response several days after they had completed that form. After giving me a bewildered look for an uncomfortably long time, one student finally blurted out, “Why would we do that?”  Upon further probing, the students said that they couldn’t imagine a situation where they would care enough to take the time to find the student portal and change their responses. When I asked, “Even if something happened at the end of the term like a surprisingly bad grade on a test or a paper that you felt was unfair?” The students responded by saying that by the end of the term they would already know enough to know what they thought of that instructor and that class. Even if they got a surprisingly low grade on a final paper or test, the students said that they would know the nature of that instructor and course long before the final test or paper.

To see if those student’s speculation about their own behavior matches with IDEA’s own data, I talked to the CEO of IDEA to ask what proportion of students go back into the system and change their responses and if that was a question that faculty at other institutions had asked.  He told me that he had heard that concern raised repeatedly since they introduced the online format. As a result, they have been watching that data point closely. Across all of the institutions that use the online system over the last several years, only 0.6% of all students actually go back into the system and edit their responses. He did not know what proportion of that small minority altered their responses in a substantially negative direction.
Since the first of my three training sesssions starts in about an hour, I’m going to stop now.  But so far, it appears that moving to IDEA online has been a pretty positive thing for students and our data. Now I hope we can make the most of it for all of our instructors. So I better get to work prepping for this week!
Make it a good day,
Mark