Starting last fall, UAF implemented BLUE: an online service for all UAF student course evaluations, replacing the traditional paper-based IAS forms.1 Instructors and students receive access information via @alaska.edu email addresses for the new online end-of-course evaluations.

Each semester, students are given access to their course evaluations by email and Blackboard. Students and instructors may access BLUE at any time https://uaf.bluera.com/uaf/. Instructors should encourage and remind students to submit these evaluations.

In preparation for student access, instructors may customize their course evaluation by selecting existing or creating up to eight new questions to be added to the survey. (This process is called “question personalization.’) Instructors choose questions from predefined questions or craft their own. These questions appear at the end of the survey.

Don’t delay — the deadline for adding questions is April 17.

ADDING PERSONALIZED QUESTIONS

To add questions, follow the link provided in the email message sent by the UAF Survey Administrator or sign in at https://uaf.bluera.com/uaf/ using your UAF credentials. From the Dashboard, choose the “Question Personalization’ entry in the Task Type column and click SELECT.

SECTION A—add pre-defined questions

Click on the “Show Section’ to see the pre-defined questions options.

There are six question categories: Physical Environment, Technology, Pedagogy, Discussion/Seminar, Skill-Based, On-Line, Lab & Field, Course Organization/Content, Instructor and General.

Each section has up to three options you may add to your survey. Use the “Open All Questions’ and “Show Section’ to review the optional questions. You can save the form and come back to it at a later time.

Section B—add customized questions

You may also choose to compose your own questions using a 5-point Likert scale or by creating open-ended questions allowing students to contribute information in their own words. The Likert scale uses the same ratings as the standard questions.

At any time you may save the form to come back to it later. Once you select questions to add, click on the PREVIEW button to see how it will look to the student. Consider getting a peer to proofread your custom questions for clarity and for typos.

When you are finished, be sure to click SUBMIT to finalize your editing.

COPY TO, OR FROM COURSES

After you  have entered the additional questions to your  first course, you  can copy those questions to other courses.
This is especially helpful when you have stacked courses. Blue doesn’t recognized stacked courses as being the same. Each course with a unique CRN gets its own evaluation. All the available courses will appear in the large drop down menu section.  You can not save questions from one semester to the next, so you can’t copy from Fall semester to Spring semester.

Topic areas to inquire about

Consider asking your students questions relating to your:

• College or School
• Programs
• Discipline
• Core curriculum
• Course materials
• Course Delivery vs. Course Design
• Guest Lecturers
• Teaching Assistants
• Specific technology (ex. publisher website)
• Teaching technique (ex. Filled classroom, service learning component)

RESOURCES

UAF Provost. (n.d.)  Blue Online Course Evaluations.[web page] Retrieved April 6, 2016.

e-Learning Heros. [n.d.].  Post-Course Evaluations for e-Learning: 60+ Questions to include. e_learning Heros. [web page] Retrieved April 6, 2016.

1 Excluding courses with an enrollment of fewer than 3 students (or in the case of cross-listed or stacked courses, a combined enrollment of fewer than 3), courses with a duration of less than one week, Non-credit courses, Independent studies, directed studies, and thesis credit courses, Internships, practicums, and apprenticeships, linked lab courses with the same instructor as the lecture (labs with a different instructor will be evaluated if they meet the other criteria).