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.
| Doer | Action | Start | End | |
| Course coordinator | Editing teachers access to the evaluation; changing evaluation dates compared to standard evaluation period (see below) | Wednesday, week 36 | Wednesday, week 38 | |
| Teacher | Setting up course evaluation (adding questions, changing the evaluation period) | Mid week 38 | The day before the evaluation starts | |
| Standard evaluation period for short courses (7 weeks) | Friday, week 39 | Friday, week 40 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for 14-week courses as well as short courses (7-week) starting in week 43 | Friday, week 47 | Friday, week 48 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for projects (excluding bachelor's projects and master’s theses) | Friday, week 47 | Friday, week 49 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for bachelor's projects and master’s theses | Wednesday, week 2 | Wednesday, week 4 | ||
| Head of Degree Programme | Data validation for the spring courses | Approx. week 50 | Approx. week 51 | |
| Teacher | Course reports are ready in Brightspace (Results from the project evaluation are included in the program reports) | The day after an evaluation closes | ||
| Head of Degree Programme | Program reports are ready in Brightspace | Week 49
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| Head of Degree Programme | Results from the project evaluation are included in the program reports. The results will be included as the project evaluation ends | All results are included from the end of week 4 | ||
| Publication of program reports without comments on the study portals | Early February | |||
| Doer | Action | Start | End | |
| Course coordinator | Editing teachers access to the evaluation; changing evaluation dates compared to standard evaluation period (see below) | Wednesday, week 6 | Wednesday, week 8 | |
| Teacher | Setting up course evaluation (adding questions, changing the evaluation period) | Mid week 8 | The day before the evaluation starts | |
| Standard evaluation period for short courses (7 weeks) | Friday, week 9 | Friday, week 10 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for 14-week courses as well as short courses (7-week) starting in week 12 | Friday, week 18 | Friday, week 19 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for projects (excluding bachelor's projects and master’s theses) | Friday, week 18 | Friday, week 20 | ||
| Standard evaluation period for bachelor's projects and master’s theses | Wednesday, week 23 | Wednesday, week 25 | ||
| Head of Degree Programme | Reporting any changes to Education committee questions for the upcoming academic year | Approx. week 21 | Approx. week 24 | |
| Head of Degree Programme | Data validation for the autumn courses | Approx. week 24 | Approx. week 25 | |
| Teacher | Course reports are ready in Brightspace (Results from the project evaluation are included in the program reports) | The day after an evaluation closes | ||
| Head of Degree Programme | Program reports are ready in Brightspace | Week 20 | ||
| Head of Degree Programme | Results from the project evaluation are included in the program reports. The results will be included as the project evaluation ends | All results are included from the end of week 25 | ||
| Publication of program reports without comments on the study portals | Early September | |||
If you have questions about Course Evaluation, please contact Course Evaluation, Nat-Tech Education:
If you have any questions regarding technical issues, please contact Brightspace Support: