Course evaluation

Aarhus University and the faculties of Natural Sciences and Technical Sciences are systematically working to make the teaching even better. One of the ways of qualifying teaching is for students to evaluate the courses they follow, so that you, as a teacher, get an insight into how the students have experienced the teaching of the course. This gives you a good basis on which to develop your teaching. In addition, course evaluations are also used as part of the accreditation of the degree programmes at AU.

Because you are the one in closest contact to the students and since it is your teaching that is being evaluated, it is important for the faculties that you prioritise course evaluation and make sure that the response rate is as high as possible. This gives AU, the Board of Studies/Education Committee and yourself the best basis for applying the results of the evaluation.

Frameworks for course evaluation
The course evaluation takes place through Brightspace and there are a number of standard questions for all courses - 2 questions are common to all courses at AU and others come from your Board of Studies/Education committee. In addition, you have the opportunity to ask your own questions if there is something YOU would like answers to from your students. Asking your own questions gives you an invaluable tool to follow the effects of your initiatives in the classroom.

There is a free-text option for all questions (except the two at AU level), and when the evaluation is over, you can see the students’ responses, both text responses and calculated percentages from the responses.

Evaluation during teaching activities
The faculty managements at Natural Sciences and Technical Sciences have decided that the evaluation will take place during class, and that the students must receive feedback on and enter into dialogue about the evaluation before the course is over.

In class, you are expected to set aside time, preferably the second to last lesson, to ensure that the students evaluate the course. Before that, you must add your own questions, if you have any in mind, and release the questionnaire in Brightspace.

During the last lesson, at the latest, you review the results together with the students. Here, you can have a dialogue about the results, get more detailed comments, and you can give your perspective on which initiatives you want to take, based on the evaluation, next time the course will be held.

We believe that this can make our good teaching even better.