Online Evaluation Resources


Policies Governing Online Evaluations


Inclusion & Exclusion Requests

Departmental administrative personnel can request that courses be included in or excluded from student evaluations of teaching by filling out the following forms.

SET Course Inclusion Requests – An inclusion request is only necessary if a course needs to be evaluated that is an: Independent StudyThesis Credit, or Travel Abroad (with subject ABD) course, or a course with an enrollment fewer than three students.

SET Course Exclusion Requests – All courses with an enrollment of 3 or more are automatically evaluated except those with components IND, THS or TRV (with subject ABD). If an automatically evaluated course needs to be excluded from evaluations, use this form.

SET Instructor Exclusion Requests – If a course coordinator or other non-teaching faculty listed on a course needs to be excluded from evaluations, use this form.

Access Blue

Instructor access to online evaluations

Norms Report Request

SET College Norms Request for P & T



Strategies for Increasing Response Rates

The strategies below were collected through external research and feedback from faculty members. These are suggestions only.

1. Set aside time at the beginning of class: Students can be asked to bring a laptop, tablet, or smart phone to do the evaluation while the instructor leaves the room. (This is like the process previously used with paper evaluations.)

2. Highlight importance: Stress to students that these evaluations are important, the instructor takes the suggestions and comments seriously, and they can help improve the class.

3. Reinforcement: Send personal email to students alerting them they will be receiving an invitation to do an online course evaluation. It would be helpful to include information on who the email will be coming from.

4. Reminders: Remind students of online evaluation during the last week of the semester

5. Mid-semester check in: Seeking mid-semester feedback reinforces to students that faculty are actively seeking feedback for use in program development. This could encourage students to respond.


SET Response Rate Reports


Student Evaluation of Teaching on Paper Update

As of Spring 2020, OIRA no longer supports paper evaluations. All evaluations are completed using the online system (Blue). This is in line with the approved April 2020 faculty motion to move toward using online Student Evaluations of teaching. If you have any questions please contact Deb Allen at debra.allen@maine.edu.