Dominican U Couples Course Evaluations with LMS

##AUTHORSPLIT###- -->

Dominican University of California has increased response rates for its course evaluations by implementing Scantron's Class Climate course evaluation software as a Blackboard Building Block.

Class Climate is a Web-based application used to conduct course evaluation surveys at colleges and universities, as well as in professional education areas, such as corporate training. The software offers a survey management platform including a questionnaire designer for online and paper-based surveys and reporting capabilities.

The university, which has 2,100 students and is located north of San Francisco, must regularly conduct course evaluations in order to assess teaching effectiveness as part of its accreditation requirements. For decades, Dominican conducted its evaluations using paper surveys. Most responses were compiled using standard survey forms. Comments and suggestions were submitted on the back of the survey form then hand-typed by university staff and submitted with the final evaluation reports.

According to university administration, this process was laborious and created numerous challenges, including a two- to four-month timeframe to complete the evaluations. By implementing Class Climate, the university was able to overcome these challenges.

"The process is now a thousand times more efficient," said Jackson Ratcliffe, CTO for Dominican. "What took months to do now takes hours. The results are also much better organized, especially in the reporting of student comments." Dominican also found Scantron's course evaluation solution to be cost effective because it greatly reduced the amount of manual labor required.

Also, Ratcliffe said he believes the service's integration with Blackboard has improved response rates. "Class Climate's integration with the Blackboard Learn platform serves as another touch point for reaching students," said Ratcliffe. "In addition to receiving an e-mail, students can go into a Web page and link directly to the evaluation. This convenience resulted in an increase in student response rates."

Class Climate customers include Mississippi State University and Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  •  laptop on a clean desk with digital padlock icon on the screen

    Study: Data Privacy a Top Concern as Orgs Scale Up AI Agents

    As organizations race to integrate AI agents into their cloud operations and business workflows, they face a crucial reality: while enthusiasm is high, major adoption barriers remain, according to a new Cloudera report. Chief among them is the challenge of safeguarding sensitive data.

  • flowing lines and geometric shapes representing data flow and analysis

    Complete College America Launches Center to Boost Data-Driven Student Success Strategies

    National nonprofit Complete College America (CCA) recently launched the Center for Leadership, Institutional Metrics, and Best Practices (CLIMB), with the goal of helping higher education institutions use data-driven strategies to improve student outcomes.

  • cybersecurity analyst in a modern operations center monitors multiple digital screens showing padlock icons, graphs, and a global map with security markers

    Louisiana State University Doubles Down on Larger Student-Run SOC

    In an effort to provide students with increased access to real-world cybersecurity experience, Louisiana State University has expanded its relationship with cybersecurity solutions provider TekStream to launch TigerSOC, a new student-run security operations center.

  •  floating digital interface with glowing icons, surrounded by faint geometric shapes

    Digital Education Council Defines 5 Dimensions of AI Literacy

    A recent report from the Digital Education Council, a global community devoted to "revolutionizing the world of education and work through technology and collaboration," provides an AI literacy framework to help higher education institutions equip their constituents with foundational AI competencies.