60-Second Survey, Fall 2015 - Comments

Question 1 Comments – Regularly Use to Plan for Coming Term

• Median Grades
• Cousre Hacker, Median town
• There weren't any course assessments for the many classes I'm looking to take. Hopefully there will be way more in the future!
• ORC and timetable need to be organized better and  have links when you click them its way too confusing and disorganized and makes looking up courses a complete hassle. We have people who are good with computers I think restructuring this system would be incredibly beneficial.
• Generally, these resources are helpful. Upperclassmen are also provide great advice.
• ORC catalogue sometimes is out of date, or doesn't match the course offerings on Dept. website. When in doubt, I've been told to go with Dept. website.
• Course assessment reports provide almost no useful information. Questions regarding the weekly hours of work required would be the most useful. Student open-ended feedback would also be very helpful. My main concern when picking courses is whether I will be overwhelmed with work, not whether courses are well organized or have clear objectives. A clear database of course syllabi would also be very useful.
• recommendations from friends. The course assessment reports are incredibly helpful!! Also, I used to use the coursetown/hacktown website but that hasn't been working this 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. Thanks for your time –
• It's very confusing for me to find classes that I don't know exist. I feel like interesting courses get lost in the shuffle. I really appreciate the full printed catalog.
• The inconsistencies in the times that future courses are listed on department websites and when they are actually offered has made planning difficult.
• I haven't had the opportunity to try the course assessment reports, but I'm really excited about them! I also utilize professors, advisors, and fellow students' feedback about courses as an important resource for making selections.
• I use department/program websites because the ORC/Catalog isn't updated early enough to plan anything ahead of time. I have no idea what classes are offered when more than a week before course registration happens. That's pretty ridiculous. Right now, I should be able to see at least through the spring and only the winter and past catalogs are available. What's the point of seeing what was offered last spring??
• course assessment reports were unavailable for all but one of the classes I was considering, which was disappointing
• course assessments don't contain median grade averages or student comments.
• The reviews on the Dartmouth Hacker Guide are super helpful for older classes and professors. Please find a way to make your course assessments look more like those - the new ones are totally unhelpful! They have absolutely no substantial comments or feedback from students, and it's totally unhelpful to just look at percentages of students who liked a given class.
• 1) Recommendations from people I know or older students who are in my major about which sequence of courses/ professors would be best
  2) I look at the timetable to make sure there aren't any scheduling conflicts
  3) Use hacker club for professor recommendations
  4) Department Websites to makes sure I am aware of all major/minor requirements
  5) Started using the course assessment reports this term. Hard to decide because not all professors are listed. It would be helpful if comments were also listed instead of just the numerical scores to know what exactly other students had concerns about and whether it is something that would be applicable to me

Question 2 Comments – Seldom or never use to Plan for Coming Term

• ORC catalogue out of date. Haven't checked out Course Assessment Reports yet. But I hear that professors choose to "opt in," I expect they'd be biased.
• I haven't used yet, but will in the future!
• ORC sometimes provides less updated info on hour/terms offered than department websites, which can be a hassle sometimes
• I don't use them because they're not comprehensive! They don't give any comments on profs or course, so it's kinda hard to tell how the course actually is.
• I use as many resources as I can when choosing classes
• New; haven't checked it out yet, but probably will in future.
• I have a plan of what classes I need to take and when I need to take them, so I have not used the Course Assessment Reports. That is not to say that I would not use them if I needed to find a new course.
• I use the timetable, just less frequently.
• Will definitely check out the Course Assessment Reports
• Outside of programs I am already involved in, I don't look at department websites.
• The catalog is very difficult to navigate and I find other websites have more useful information. I primarily used the catalog my freshman year and have since moved on to other resources
• I use all of these resources.

Question 3 Comments – Regularly use to plan major/minor

• i would use the course assessments except since it's opt-in most of my potential professors don't use it :/
• mediantown
• 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.
• It would be very helpful if department websites or the ORC included hours at which courses will be offered farther into the future. I have planned my major based on classes being offered at the same time that they were in the past.
• Word of mouth from friends
• Degree Audit on Banner
• Hacktown
• My dean and faculty advisor help me the most
• I am a '16 and have already planned major--but used department website primarily
• Professors in the department, friends with the same major/minor
• DegreeWorks

Question 4 Comments: Seldom or never use to plan major/minor

• I think I will utilize all these resources at some time
• I use as many resources as I can when planning my major and minors.
• Plan to use all
• 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).
• Again, haven't thought that far ahead.

Question 5 Comments – Other Comments:

• the banner/orc system is completely outdated and really needs to be updated.
• It would be really helpful to have the academic timetable tell you what courses would be available in terms further ahead than next term. I've tried to plan my major using the timetable and ORC, but I can't do it because it only shows next term and previous. Instead, I have to go back and forth between all of the department websites, which often have conflicting information. They also don't tell you what distribs courses have, which is a pain.
• How do I learn about what professor are preferred by students in the past?
• 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.
• The only reason I never used the course assessments is because they weren't available the past three years, otherwise I would have used them regularly
• I may start to use the timetable of courses and the course evaluations later, but as of yet I have not used them.
• Have most recent syllabi for classes available on department/program websites
• It would be amazing if y'all could link the ORC with the course election website and make sure the ORC is up to date.
• This isn't something the registrar can control, but it would be helpful for planning if various departments would publish their course offerings further in advance of just one or two terms.  The current system makes it difficult for double majors.
• the idea of the course assessments page is AWESOME but we need more assessments for a more wide range of courses
• I'd be nice if you could choose your section in a class with multiple times. Thanks again for asking for our input – cheers
• I am really excited to be able to have access to the course assessment reports, even though it will only be for one more term of my Dartmouth career. I also actively seek advice not just from online resources, but from my professors, advisors, and fellow students when selecting courses and planning my major and minors.
• I could not access the course assessment portal for some reason.
• It would be really nice to be able to search all of the classes that will be offered in a certain term for a department without having to click through all the different links on the ORC site. The format is not very conducive to effective planning.
• I want to use the new course assessments but I have not yet because I had not known where they were!
• Thank you for opening up the course assessment portal. I found that some classes have yet to be posted and would love to check those out too. Thanks.
• It is absurd that we cannot see what courses will be offered when in any one place. This makes planning very difficult.
• 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>.
• It would be really cool if the course schedule for a term could be integrated with the ORC.
• The ORC/catalog is very hard to navigate, not user friendly or visually appealing so I don't enjoy using it.
• All resources offered are very helpful. It is wonderful that past course assessments are now available.
• I wish there were better resources for major advising, hence course planning and selection.
• Course planning is an incredibly difficult process because the ORC does not keep an up-to-date information on courses. Often, there is a lack of information on the course time and the offered term(s). And even if they are, they are frequently subject to change. This lack of information makes it challenging to plan out even a year's worth of courses, let alone the next term's until the official timetable becomes available on banner. Considering that most courses are offered only once a year and that there are certain required courses, intricate planning is required on the part of the students, but that process is hindered by the lack of information on the part of the ORC. Departmental websites often help, but not all departments keep an up-to-date information, either. There needs to be a way to keep the ORC current and more useful.
• I couldn't care less about seeing course assessments. Nobody fills them out thoughtfully, its just an annoying hurdle we have to go through to be allowed to see our grades at the end of the term.