Administrative Business Rules

To select a course to be evaluated, choose Y or X or M in the "Eval" course attribute field.

• Y indicates a standard end of semester evaluation:
  • Evaluation opens Class End Date -14 days and runs until the Class End Date +1 day.
  • Reports are delivered the day after the Semester Grade Deadline.
• X indicates an extended end of semester evaluation:
  • Evaluation opens Class End Date -14 days until +1 day before Semester Grade Deadline.
  • Reports are delivered the day after the Semester Grade Deadline.
• M indicates the course will have a mid semester evaluation:
  • Evaluation runs middle of the semester (1/3 of the way through the semester minus one week) and is open for seven days.
  • Reports are delivered the day after evaluation is complete.

Special Course Flags Within HUB

Courses with an “Eval” attribute setting will get additional questions if any of the following flags are also set:

• Online: Any course with this attribute will get additional “online questions” (currently seeking Faculty Senate approval).

HUB Data Processing

Hub data will be pushed to the evaluations service daily (Monday through Friday). Changes made in any business day will be visible on the course evaluations service the following day. It is the recommendation of UBCE support team that department schedulers complete evaluation flagging by the 4th week of each spring and fall semester and by the second week of each winter, summer session and non-standard session.

Unit-Level Coordinators should submit operational requests such as:

• Unit-Level Coordinator assignment changes.
• Creation of new question sets.
• Modification of existing question sets.
• Assignment of question sets to department/program courses.

All requests will be reviewed and responded to by the UBCE support team.

The UBCE service is the university-wide online tool for evaluating UB’s academic courses.

• Course evaluations are an important part of the University at Buffalo's commitment to academic excellence.
• Course evaluations support better assessment of student attitudes about teaching quality and ensure consistency and comparability of information obtained across the university.
• Results from core and custom questions help faculty review courses and identify changes to promote increased student learning.

UB's Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation is the service organization charged with managing UBCE.

• The UBCE support team is responsible for working with appropriate campus agencies to keep the service operational.
• CATT is responsible for organizing and managing a Course Evaluations Advisory Committee.
• The Faculty Senate (FS) is the de-facto authority for policy on operation of UBCE.
• The UBCE Advisory Committee is the communicating arm between the Faculty Senate and the UBCE Support Team.
• The UBCE support team is the gateway for user requests to the advisory committee.

All academic courses will receive an end of semester evaluation (as defined in the FS resolution).

• In order to have a course removed from evaluation, approval must be sought from the current deans for graduate and undergraduate education.
• In order to have an excluded course type (i.e. TUT) receive an evaluation, approval must be sought from the current deans for graduate and undergraduate education.
• Anyone listed in a teaching role (i.e. PI, SI, TA) will be evaluated with instructor questions.
• Anyone listed as a TA will not have access to view course data.

Any course evaluated should be asked all core questions.

• Eight core course questions focusing on assessment of the course.
• Five core faculty questions focusing on assessment of the instructors.
• Course evaluations are administered according to timings based on the FS resolution unless exception has been approved from the current vice provosts for graduate and undergraduate education.*

To aid in assessment of learning and teaching improvement (April 5, 2016 FS resolution):

• Mid-term evaluations are allowed with questions defined by the Unit-Level Coordinators.
• Courses identified as GenEd (UB Curriculum) will automatically receive additional GenEd questions.*
• Courses identified as online will automatically receive additional questions for evaluation of online. (currently seeking Faculty Senate approval).
• Dropped student surveys and reporting will be implemented (currently seeking Faculty Senate approval).
• Student access to evaluation results for UB core course questions will be implemented (currently seeking Faculty Senate approval).
• A teaching improvement feedback tool, MyFocus, will be implemented.

Results will be available to improve teaching, student learning and academic excellence in the following manners:

• Data collected will be consistent and available across the university.
• As per the FS resolution, any student who requests access to course evaluation results can be given those results.

*As of the Spring Semester 2017 evaluation cycle, all courses and instructors are pulled from HUB based on the Eval, Location, GenEd and Online attributes, and all instructors (PI, SI TA) listed with a course will be evaluated. HUB settings are managed by departmental schedulers.