Fall 2024 Administration
Students will be able to access their course surveys from:
Monday, December 2 (7:00 am ET) through Thursday, December 19 (11:00 pm ET)
Non-Standard Date Classes and Multiple Instructors Splitting the Semester
If an instructor finishes teaching prior to the last day of classes, coordinators work with ASER to schedule and include the instructor in one of six early SRTI sessions that take place before the main session.
Setting Up SRTI
The SRTI online system imports course and instructor information from SPIRE to set up a course survey form for primary instructors of credit-bearing lecture, lab, seminar, studio/skills, and colloquium course sections. (Some departments also survey practicum and non-credit lab and discussion sections.)
Our office works with program and department SRTI coordinators to help confirm that the list of courses and instructors for the semester is complete and correct. The coordinator is the liaison for program and departmental administrators, faculty, scheduling representatives, and ASER. Coordinators are given access to the OWL SRTI Coordinator Tool to:
- review the department/program SPIRE course list
- select which courses should be evaluated
- confirm that there are no missing courses
- check to make sure all course and instructor information is correct
Instructors will receive an informational email from ASER two to three weeks prior to the survey start date, which will contain a list of the course sections that have been set up in the course survey system. If any changes are necessary, coordinators work with department scheduling representatives to correct the information in SPIRE.
Types of SRTI Forms
Based on information from SPIRE, each section will be automatically assigned one of five main surveys.
SRTI Course Survey
The SRTI course survey is administered in credit‐bearing lecture, lab, seminar, studio/skills, and colloquium sections.
Univ+ SRTI Course Survey
Because the majority of courses offered through University+ (formerly UWW) are taught online, we administer a modified version of the SRTI form that contains questions that are more appropriate for online instruction.
FYS Student Experience Questionnaire
Students enrolled in first-year seminars will be administered the FYS Student Experience Questionnaire, which asks them about their experiences in their FYS and encourages them to offer feedback on how to enhance the FYS program.
Integrative Experience (IE) Survey
After answering SRTI items, students enrolled in integrative experience (IE) courses will be administered a set of questions designed to help gain some understanding of students' perspectives and experiences in their IE courses. Results for the IE portion of the survey are reported separately from SRTI results and sent only to the primary instructor(s) and directly to department heads and chairs to be used in the ongoing development of the IE.
Student Response to Discussion/Lab Sections
For departments that survey non-credit lab and discussion sections, this form, developed by ASER in conjunction with the Graduate School, contains both new questions and some questions from the SRTI survey adapted to make them more relevant to instruction in lab and discussion sections.
View SRTI survey form questions (University sign-in required)
Custom Extra Surveys
Departments, programs, and/or instructors can work with coordinators to add up to 15 multiple choice items that students will be asked to fill out after completing the main SRTI form. (Open-ended questions are not currently supported).
Student Invite and Reminders
Students can access all of their surveys through the following link provided in the email:
http://owl.umass.edu/partners/courseEvalSurvey/uma/.
Shortly after the survey opens, ASER will email students their first notification. There will be four additional reminder emails sent only to students who have not yet completed their forms. Students will also receive a general notification on Canvas letting them know if they have surveys to complete.
For multiple-instructor or team-taught courses, students will be asked to fill out a form for each instructor.
Response Rates
The primary challenge with online survey administration is continuing to obtain appropriate response rates. Departments and instructors play a critical role in this effort. Please read and adapt our suggestions for encouraging student response to course surveys.
ASER will send weekly email updates to instructors with their current response rates. At the end of the survey period, a follow-up email to instructors will report the final response rate for each course section.
Program and department SRTI coordinators can also provide instructors with up-to-date response rates.
Survey Results
Once the grade submission deadline for the semester has passed, ASER will generate departmental and instructor reports that are made available as electronic files to department and program SRTI coordinators, who then distribute reports to instructors. At this time, it is not possible for instructors to look up their own results online.
For Integrative Experience (IE) courses, results for the IE portion of the survey are reported separately from SRTI results and sent only to instructors and directly to department heads and chairs to be used in the ongoing development of the IE.
First Year Seminar Questionnaire results are only shared directly with instructors and with the FYS/FFYS program.
Questions or Concerns
Please feel free to contact our office at aser@umass.edu if you have any questions or concerns.