Daily Associate Editor Student Council passed two bills concerning online course evaluations at Tuesday's meeting, one addressing the role of teaching assistants and the other commending the student body for completing the evaluations last semester.
College Rep. J.R. Slosson said results of the evaluations will be made available to students through the Course Offering Directory for the 2005 fall semester.
"This is the first semester that the online course evaluations were done," said Joshua Davis, a representative from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. "We looked into it, and we are in favor of the online evaluation because all students have access to it. This is unanimous throughout the University."
Davis said the problem with the current process is that it has the potential to hurt TAs. According to Davis, TAs can receive poor reviews because some students are not aware of what is under their control.
"The problem is the questions on the course evaluations don't apply to the work that TAs do," Davis said. "TAs don't often have any control over the syllabus, the work load, the reading list."
Davis said the bill is geared toward continual improvement of the online course evaluations for TAs.
"Often, a TA receives bad reviews for a professor's course," Davis said. "It is all about responsibility."
The resolution that addressed how course evaluations assess TA contributions originated from Council's Student Affairs Committee.
"It was there when we first began to discuss these course evaluations and what they meant for teaching assistants," he said.
Davis said Council has presented different ideas for improvement, but added that Council has not committed to any specific guidelines.
"We don't know how to fix the problem, whether we design a set of questions specifically for TAs," Davis said. "As it stands, it needs some improvement."
David said Council wants to address the problem now while it is still new and on students' minds.
"We want to come up with a way to address problems that we are already seeing," he said. "We are open to whoever wants to hear us."
The second resolution commended the University community for the success of the online course evaluation system. Through the resolution, Council is encouraging students to continue to complete evaluations and is requesting that the Provost's Office work to improve the system to ensure it is an effective and user-friendly resource.
Slosson, one of the bill's sponsors, said Council sought to praise students for their participation in and commitment to the system, and he added that student participation will help to improve the course evaluation system.
"We wanted to demonstrate our commitment to continuing the system," he said. "It is an ongoing process that we are continuing to look at to make it better."
He said he is enthusiastic about the Academic Affairs Committee's work behind online course evaluations.
"We want to emphasize the work of the Academic Affairs Committee and the students," Slosson said. "It is an excellent example of student self-governance at work, students directly participating."
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