60-Second Survey, Fall 2015

Thank you for participating in our first 60-second survey on course planning. Here is what we found based on the 833 respondents:

Students indicated that they use the Timetable of Courses (82% of respondents) the most regularly to plan their courses for an upcoming term, followed closely by the ORC/Catalog (77% of respondents). Department/Program websites are also popular resources with 56% of respondents indicating. They use other resources only 5% of the time in comparison, with median grades in particular reflected in the comments. We learned that even though many students did not yet know that course assessments were available to them, nearly 20% of respondents indicated that they did use course assessments.

We received a great deal of feedback on the course assessments, reflecting excitement that the information was available, and a strong desire for more faculty to opt in so more courses would have data available in the assessment portal.

When planning their majors and minors, students tend to use department/program web pages more frequently (68% of respondents), followed by the ORC/Catalog (51% of respondents). Again, course assessments were rarely used, but enthusiasm for using them in the future is reflected in the comments received. Other resources that were not listed on the survey but were submitted through the comments included faculty, faculty advisors, undergraduate deans, and peers, indicating a strong personal component to major/minor planning.

What did we learn? Quite a bit, as indicated by some representative comments below. Please read our Fall Comments page for a fuller sampling of student commentary. We also have some graphical representations of the responses to the survey available.

Representative comments:

• Question 1 - Which of the following do you use regularly to plan your courses for an upcoming term?
  
  • "The new course assessment reports are awesome. Please add to these. Timetable is also great, I wish the spring term one was already up."
  • "The inconsistencies in the times that future courses are listed on department websites and when they are actually offered has made planning difficult."
• Question 2 - Which of the following applications do you seldom or never use to plan your courses for an upcoming term?
  
  • "I use as many resources as I can when choosing classes"
  • "ORC sometimes provides less updated info on hour/terms offered than department websites, which can be a hassle sometimes"
• Question 3 - Which of the following applications do you use regularly to plan your major/minor or anticipated major/minor?
  
  • "Again, I haven't had the chance to use the course assessment reports, but I'm checking the box because if I could have used them in the past I absolutely would have. I also use my professors, advisors, and fellow students as resources during this planning process."
  • "My dean and faculty advisor help me the most"
• Question 4 - Which of the following applications do you seldom or never use to plan your major/minor or anticipated major/minor?
  
  • "I think I will utilize all these resources at some time"
  • "When I need to find when a course is offered I have found specific department pages to have much more information on who will be teaching a section, and when (often through next academic year or more, not just in the upcoming term or two)."
• Question 5 - Additional Comments
  • "The reason why course assessments are useless is not because they're inherently useless.  They're fantastic!  However, the system for using them is atrocious, and the default opt-out system makes it so none of the classes I have an interest in taking have reviews.  I would love if displaying them were mandatory, but even changing to a default opt-in would increase the number of reviews substantially.  Until this is done, it will be borderline useless, as teachers can cherry pick based on their feedback."
  • "Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a program that allowed me to input my d-plan and then add all the courses that I needed to take and then the program, since it would know when each class is offered (since that is honestly the most annoying thing to figure out myself when planning) would arrange a 4 year plan of when I should take each course <wistful sigh>."

What's on the horizon for student course planning? Improvements to the Banner landing page, the major declaration process, and the addition of major requirements in DegreeWorks. Any students interested in working with us to test new applications, let us know! Just email us at registrar@dartmouth.edu.