Penn Course Review goes online-only

This is the last semester that students will use a Scantron sheet and No. 2 pencil to evaluate their professors.

Starting in Spring 2009, the course evaluation system will be completely electronic.

With this shift, the Student Committee for Undergraduate Education hopes to make the qualitative comments - which students currently handwrite at the bottom of the evaluation form but are not published online - accessible to everyone.

Switching to an online system will reduce paper waste, unnecessary expenses and the administrative burden of scanning the evaluations into the computer, as well as increase legibility and maintainability of the forms.

One of the main challenges of moving to an online system will be encouraging students to fill out the evaluations, said College and Wharton senior Zach Fuchs, chairman of SCUE.

The Scantron review forms have a 70- to 80-percent response rate, he said.

Students will most likely receive an e-mail encouraging them to go online and fill out the forms at the end of every semester.

Student comments will remain confidential, and students "won't be penalized for submitting a candid and harsh evaluation," said College senior Aaron Werner, the student representative to the University's online course evaluation advisory committee.

According to Fuchs, the University is considering withholding students' grades until they have completed evaluations of all of their classes - a practice Fuchs said is utilized at several of Penn's peer institutions.

However, "the biggest encouragement" to go online and fill out the form "has to be the fact that the more people participate, the better the information," said Robert Nelson, associate director for education in the provost's office.

Until 2001, the Penn Course Review was published in paper form, and students could buy a compilation of detailed class and professor evaluations in the Penn Bookstore.

Since SCUE developed a Web-based version of Penn Course Review in 2002, the hand-written comments have not been available to students.

"It's a huge hassle to sort through hand-written comments," Fuchs said. If students enter evaluations online, it will make compiling their responses "much easier," he said.

This year, SCUE wants to reconstitute the Penn Course Review editorial board. This committee will be in charge of compiling the qualitative reviews - a process that will be easier once the system is online.

Another reason for the shift to an electronic evaluation process is to make the course reviews more accessible to administrators and professors, Nelson said.

Professors use the course evaluations to "improve their teaching," he said, and department chairs, school deans and the Provost's office use student reviews as a part of the tenure and promotion process.

On Oct. 31, there will be a roundtable discussion for student leaders, administrators and professors to talk about the future of Penn Course Review in light of the new online system.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.