Customize Your Feedback

One of the most useful features of Stanford’s end-term course feedback form is the ability to add custom questions to the standard form which may generate more specific and actionable feedback. You may add questions about course learning goals, course elements (e.g., discussions, readings, projects), and questions of your own devising.

Accessing the Course Evaluation System

You can access the course evaluation system through the following link (you will be prompted to sign in through the normal Stanford Web Authentication for university websites):

course-evaluations.stanford.edu

In addition to the information and steps below, there is a detailed guide that explains the customization process and includes screenshots of the system to help walk you through the process: How To Customize Questions for Your Course Feedback Form

Previewing Your Courses and the Standard Feedback Form

To see your course(s) for the current term*, follow these steps:

1. From your course evaluation system home page, click Manage Courses in the purple banner at the top of the page
2. Click the “View” icon to the far right side of the page for the current term
3. Your course(s) will be listed on the resulting page

Prior to creating your custom question survey, we recommend previewing the standard form to review the standard questions, avoid question duplication, and gauge the length of the feedback form for your students. To preview the standard form, click the “Preview” icon to the far right side of your course(s) listed in step 3 above.

*Please note that course and instructor information is not added to the course evaluation system until week 4 of each term.

Customizing the Course Feedback Form

The main steps for customizing your course feedback form are:

1. Create a custom question survey
2. Add questions to your custom question survey
3. Attach your custom question survey to your course feedback form

You can also reuse an existing custom question survey that you have created in the new course evaluation system and used in a previous term.

Create a Custom Question Survey

1. Select the Custom Questions > Custom Questions Surveys menu option in the purple banner at the top of the page
2. Click the Create New Survey button in the top right corner of the page
3. Give your survey a title (the title can be anything you like, but we recommend a title that is course and term specific so you know which questions apply to a given course in a term)
4. The Description field is optional
5. Click Save to save your custom survey

Add Questions to a Custom Question Survey

There are several ways to add questions to your custom survey and we have provided a number of question templates and standard questions to save you time and effort. These pages provide additional information for adding the various types of questions to your custom survey:

• Use Learning Goal Question templates
• Use Standard Course Element questions
• Add Custom Course Element and Textbook questions
• Use Custom Question templates
• Create custom questions

Reuse an existing custom question survey

If you already have a custom question survey in the course evaluation system, you can reuse the survey for other courses in subsequent terms. If you want to use the same questions exactly as they appear in your custom survey, you can simply attach the survey to a course in a subsequent term following the steps below.

You can also make changes to an existing survey by copying the survey, making your changes in the new copy, and then attaching the survey to your course. When creating a copy of a survey, we recommend selecting the “Create a new instance of this survey. Questions WILL NOT be linked.” option.

You can create a copy of an existing survey by going to your Custom Question Surveys page, clicking the three vertical dots under the "Options" column for the survey you want to copy, and then clicking the “Create a Copy” option from the pop-up menu.

Attach custom question survey to a course feedback form

Once you are ready to attach your custom question survey to your course feedback form, follow these steps:

1. Select the Custom Questions > Custom Questions Projects menu option in the purple banner at the top of the page
2. Click the current term under Project name, or the purple + sign on the far right of the page
3. Click the + Add Custom Question Survey link
4. Click the purple check mark under Select on the far right side of the page for your custom survey
5. Click the Select Courses button
6. Click the Add Courses button
7. Select your course in the window that opens
8. Click Add Selected Courses
9. Click OK on the confirmation window that opens

Custom questions should now be added to your course feedback form and you can confirm this by previewing the form (see the “Previewing Your Courses” section above). All questions that appear on the form preview will be presented to your students and there is nothing else you need to do.

You may make additional edits to your custom questions after attaching your survey by simply returning to your custom question survey and making changes. These changes are automatically updated on the form and will be reflected in the form preview. You do not need to go through any of the steps to attach the survey again.

Requesting Additional Help

If you would like any help with customizing your course feedback form, you can request a demo/tutorial of the system or attend drop-in hours during the customization period.

Designating Custom Question Proxies

If you would like to assign a proxy, or proxies, to add custom questions on your behalf, or you have your instructor's permission to add custom questions for them, please fill out this proxy request form and we will provide the necessary access.

School or Department Customization

If you are interested in potentially adding school or department level questions across courses, please visit this School/Department Customization informational page.