Course Evaluations

Evaluations are completely anonymous.

Evaluation administrators use student confidence as our foremost guiding principal. The identity of respondents is confidential and responses can not be linked to the student who submitted them.

As an additional step instructors may not view evaluation reports until after their course grades have been submitted, or a reasonable amount of time from the term has passed. Instructors cannot identify which particular students have or have not completed the evaluation.  (Note, evaluation non-respondent email can be sent from the system without revealing the identity of students.)

Evaluations which receive fewer than 5 responses (which could lead to possible identification of individual students) are not released to instructors.  Department administrators and chairs must request those evaluations, and they are charged with sharing that information either by distilling that information or, if the report could not possibly be linked to students they may share the report directly.

Contact the evaluation group at course-evals@barnard.edu, or the Provost's Office with questions and comments about Barnard course evaluations. Student may also check with the instructor, department chair, or department assistants/administrators.

Columbia undergraduate and graduate courses are also evaluated using different forms and independent policies & procedures. Contact courseworks@columbia.edu for questions and comments about Columbia course evaluations.

Access evaluations on CourseWorks Canvas, or by clicking a link in any of the reminder notification emails sent.

Students are requested to submit all assigned evaluation forms for all courses. To encourage participation, Barnard students (with the exception of graduating seniors) who don't submit all the evaluation forms for a Barnard course (whether filled in completely, partially, or not at all) will be blocked from viewing their grade online in that course for three (3) weeks.

Evaluations are completely anonymous. You are the only person, unless you have shown it to someone, to see your evaluation form. All reporting is in aggregate.

Evaluations which receive fewer than 5 responses (which could lead to possible identification of individual students) reports are not released to instructors.  Department administrators and chairs must request those evaluations, and they are charged with sharing that information either by distilling that information or, if the report could not possibly be linked to students they may share the report directly.

Student feedback is used in two ways:

• The faculty incorporate student feedback as they continuously revise and enhance their courses.
• Data from these surveys are key elements in how the College evaluates teaching during the reappointment, tenure and promotion processes.

Please send an email to course-evals@barnard.edu and include the course ID and if you would like an unlock or reset. Unlock will leave your responses untouched and a reset will unlock and remove your responses. We cannot unlock or reset after the evaluation period has closed.

Instructors, department chairs, program directors, and department administrators can ensure that course evaluations are carried out properly

1. Work with the Provost's Office and IMATS to ensure that the right courses are being evaluated, and that the correct form is assigned to each course.
2. Review CourseWorks rosters for courses under your purview, ensuring that Instructors and TAs are properly designated if they are being evaluated.
3. Optionally add up to ten (10) additional questions.
4. Encourage students to fill out the forms during the evaluation period.

A standard evaluation form will be applied to most Barnard courses, but instructors or departments may add up to ten supplemental questions of their own. There are distinct templates or forms for Lectures/Seminars and for Labs. If there are Teaching Assistants for a course, they are included in the evaluations; variants of each form are created and applied depending on how many instructors or TAs are being evaluated for a given course. 

Here are examples of the standard forms:

• Evaluation form for Lecture/Seminar courses (pdf)
• Evaluation form for Lab courses (pdf)

Instructions for adding course-specific questions:

1. Before you add course-specific questions to your evaluation, please check with your department chair(s) and department assistant/administrator to see if there are any applicable policies and/or guidelines for your department.
2. In CourseWorks, go into your course.
3. Click on "Evaluation" on the menu on the left side.
4. Click on the plus sign next to the evaluation name to open the evaluation.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the evaluation to where it says "Add Additional Questions."
6. Select the type of question from the menu and click "Add." You may add up to 10 questions.
7. Fill out the box that opens and then click "Save Item."

All graduate-level courses are evaluated by Columbia Arts & Sciences.  The procedures for the graduate-level courses are described here. You will need to contact the Columbia department chair or administrator to receive the reports.

EvaluationKIT (Spring 2018 - present):  

Access the EvaluationKIT dashboard at bcol-columbia.evaluationkit.com to retrieve past evaluations and see pending evaluation assigned to your courses.

This link is also available on my.barnard.edu in the Provost link section (select Administration from the Navigation items).

During evaluations: click on any course and select the Evaluations navigation item. 

CourseWorks Sakai (prior to Spring 2018):

• To access evaluations prior to 2016 login to "Old CourseWorks" from https://courseworks.columbia.edu.  
• Select My Evaluations from the left-hand navigation menu.
• In the My Evaluations flip the Term drop down in the top-right to the correct term to view
• From there you will be presented with a list of reports to view/download

Department Administrators can access evaluations for their entire department. If your access is not configured please contact course-evals@barnard.edu.

Students are requested to submit all assigned evaluation forms for all courses. To encourage participation, Barnard students (with the exception of graduating seniors) who don't submit all the evaluation forms for a Barnard course (whether filled in completely, partially, or not at all) will be blocked from viewing their grade online in that course for three (3) weeks.