Customize Section Feedback

One of the most useful features of Stanford’s end-term feedback form is the ability to add additional questions to the standard form which may make it more meaningful and relevant to your role in the course. You may select questions from a set of predefined questions, but you are not able to create your own questions.

For courses with more than one TA, CA, or Fellow, students are able to select which individual(s) they would like to provide feedback for. This allows students to provide feedback to anyone on the teaching team who they interacted with during the term, regardless of which section they may have been enrolled in. On the feedback form, each question is repeated for each individual the student selected so they are able to provide specific feedback for each individual. We recommend deciding as a team which additional questions to add to the section feedback form. Only one person on the team needs to add the additional questions to the feedback form.

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 Add Additional Questions to your Section 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 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 New to save your custom survey

Add Questions to a Custom Question Survey

In courses with more than one TA, CA, or Fellow, it is important to only use questions from the Additional Section Questions item bank. These questions have been designed to repeat for each individual a student selects to provide feedback for. If questions are selected from other item banks, those questions will not repeat for each individual and will be confusing to the students as it will not be clear who they are providing that feedback to. If you are the only TA, CA, or Fellow for a given course, it will not cause any issues if you choose to add questions from other item banks.

Please note, it is not possible to create your own questions for the Section feedback.

1. To access the standard additional section questions, click Add a Question and select From Item Banks
2. On the following page, click on the Item Banks field and select Additional Section Questions
3. Click Search
4. You will see a list of standard additional section questions and you can select the questions you would like to add by clicking the checkbox just above the question prompt
5. Once you have selected the questions you want to use, click Add Selected Questions in the top right corner of the page

The questions are then added to your custom question survey. These questions cannot be edited or changed in any way.

If you need to change the order of questions in your custom survey, use the # field and arrows on the far right side of a question to move it up or down in the order of questions in your survey. For example, entering 3 in the # field and clicking the up arrow will move a question three questions up in your survey.

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 link 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 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

The 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.

If you need to make any changes to the questions you added, simply return to your custom question survey and make the 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 section feedback form, you can request a demo/tutorial of the system or attend drop-in hours during the customization period.