IDEA has been rolled out for Fall 2019.

 

Important Update:

In fall 2019 semester, the IDEA surveys were rolled out on a new platform (CampusLabs). This platform allows faculty to check the response rates when surveys are underway, access reports after the surveys are closed, and track data over time.  

For CampusLabs technical support, call (716) 270-0000 or email support@campuslabs.com  For username/password issues, contact UAA IT Services at (907) 786-4646, option 1, or email uaa.techsupport@alaska.edu 

Faculty link: https://alaska.campuslabs.com/faculty/

What are IDEA Surveys? (an overview)

IDEA Surveys are the online course evaluations which the University of Alaska Anchorage contracts The IDEA Center to administer every semester. IDEA is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to serve colleges and universities committed to improving learning, teaching, and leadership performance. 

Setting Up Surveys

Every semester after the add-drop deadline, a list of CRNs (Course Numbers) that meet the criteria (have 3 or more students enrolled) are loaded into IDEA. If your course does not generate a survey, a suite of summative and formative classroom assessments should be established to supplement or supplant IDEA. Sometimes, courses that are cross-listed or stacked may generate multiple surveys. Faculty may see multiple OSF forms for these courses because there are multiple CRNs associated with them. Multiple surveys for the same course can be easily combined by emailing uaa.idea@alaska.edu .

The Objective Selection Form (OSF) (adding questions, weighting objectives)

Once the IDEA Surveys have been setup for a given semester (normally shortly after the Add-Drop deadline), faculty will begin getting reminders to fill out the Objective selection Form (OSF). These reminders continue weekly until faculty have finished all their OSF forms. 

The goal of the form is to make course evaluation results more applicable by giving more weight to specific objectives. It allows faculty to weight certain survey questions more heavily, to give no weight to inapplicable questions and to add any course-specific questions they would like. If the OSF is not filled out, all questions are given the same weight. If the OSF is not filled out before student surveys open, faculty can still use it to weight questions but will no longer be able to add questions to the survey. For information regarding how to fill out the OSF please see How to Complete Objective Selection Form. Please see Adding Custom Questions to a Course Section for further information on customizing the survey.

Student Access to Surveys

Students automatically gain access to surveys in sections where faculty do not take active steps to change the default survey dates. Students will be able to access the surveys via smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer by logging on to a single URL, using their institution credentials (UAA username and password). Students will be receiving a notification and email reminders to complete their surveys. The student access link does not change and can be used from one term to the next. To change survey dates, email us at uaa.idea@alaska.edu.

Survey Results

How to view your response rates.

IDEA Survey results come in two pieces: qualitative and quantitative. 

The quantitative results contain averages of the numerical scores students supplied as well as a comparison of those scores across the university and even show a comparison with similar courses throughout the country.

Qualitative results contain student comments and any specialized questions that faculty added to the survey by filling out the Objective Selection Form (OSF). Qualitative results are confidential and are only given to the instructor of the course via e-mail to a UAA e-mail address.

When are results disseminated?

IDEA survey results will be available for you a few days after the surveys close. With the new platform, faculty can monitor response rates in an active administration. For example, if you notice that your response rates are rather low and the survey period is halfway over, you can encourage students in class to complete them and follow-up with reminder emails. Here is additional information on how to review your response rates.

What if I'm missing results for a specific course?

Not all surveys generate results. If you received most of your results for a semester and are missing one or two courses, it may be that your missing course did not have enough respondents to generate a result. Feel free to contact our office if you need specific information about a course.