PROCEDURES FOR ADMINISTERING SUMMATIVE STUDENT EVALUATIONS

1. When courses are evaluated summatively by students (i. e., for inclusion in academic files for personnel purposes), such evaluations shall be conducted during the last two weeks of classes for the term, preferably not on the last day of classes or during the final examination period.

2. The evaluation shall be conducted preferably at the beginning of the class period and students shall be given sufficient time to fill out the forms (at least ten to fifteen minutes).

3. Forms shall be distributed and collected by someone other than the instructor of record in the class; for example, another instructor, a departmental staff person, a work-study person, a volunteer or designee from the class, or another student in UMD. Each academic year, members in a department will determine according to departmental procedures which of the aforementioned categories of people are appropriate for distributing, supervising, and collecting the evaluation forms. After the instructor of record has arranged for someone to distribute and collect the evaluation forms, s/he shall not be present in the room while the students are filling them out.

4. At the beginning of the period, whoever is designated to distribute and collect the evaluations shall read aloud to the class the following statement, which will be included with the packet of summative evaluation forms: "The University of Minnesota Duluth takes student evaluations very seriously. They are used to review and improve teaching. The evaluations are anonymous, and they will not be seen by the instructor until final grades for this course have been recorded."

5. The person who is designated to distribute and collect the evaluations will remain in class while students fill out the forms. Under this person's supervision, students shall fill out the evaluations quietly and individually so the data are linked to each individual student's assessment of the instructor and the course.

6. When the forms are completed, the person who has supervised the evaluation shall place them in a sealed envelope and sign the envelope across the seal. S/he will take them directly to the departmental staff person. If the departmental staff cannot be located, then the person who has supervised the evaluation shall take the sealed envelope to the appropriate College Dean's Office. Staff in the Dean's Office will alert the appropriate department at the earliest convenience. If the class to be evaluated is held after regular working hours, then the designated collector will deposit them in the after-hours box in the UMD Library. To ensure the security of the process, the instructor of record can choose to accompany the person who has collected the forms to the place where they are to be delivered.

7. If the class to be evaluated is an internship, practicum, field experience, or other "real world experience" in which the students do not meet together regularly, then the instructor shall designate some individual(s) at the site(s) to distribute, supervise, collect and return the evaluations securely to the appropriate department. If these arrangements are not practical, then the instructor will consult with the department head about an appropriate means for distributing, supervising, and collecting the teaching evaluation forms; for instance, the instructor can arrange with department staff to mail the forms (with a returnable stamped envelope) to the interns. Forms that are mailed to interns must be returned to departments before the end of the term.

8. Departmental staff will make sure that the evaluation forms are coded correctly according to instructor and course section. Staff will forward the numerically scored forms to Information Services, which will tabulate them and, after grades are turned in, return the tabulated results to the instructor of record. Before the numerically scored forms are forwarded to Information Services, departmental staff will separate from the packet of evaluations the qualitative questions and responses (if the instructor has requested that such questions be administered) and retain them until after grades have been submitted for the course. At that time, departmental staff shall give the qualitative questions and responses to the instructor, who then can decide whether to include them in his/her Academic Record File.

9. Each year, department heads shall maintain rosters that list the courses that instructors have designated for evaluation and inclusion for personnel purposes. Faculty are responsible for submitting to their Principal Administrators for insertion in their Academic Record Files the summative evaluations that are required in the University's review cycles for retention, promotion, tenure, and salary adjustments.

10. At the start of every academic year, the administration shall distribute a copy of these procedures to every faculty person who is a UEA member. Collegiate Deans shall ensure that any UEA member who is not present Fall Quarter will be given a copy, beginning with the quarter that he or she teaches.