- 1.What is the course opinion poll?
The course opinion poll, which is anonymous, provides teachers and their superiors with useful feedback related to their courses. The information is collected via an electronic questionnaire only filled out by the students enrolled in these courses. Students provide answers during examination period and after its end the results of the poll are published. Assessed teachers are informed about them by e-mail. Continuous monitoring of the results during the examination period has been cancelled since the spring semester 2019.
- 2.Is the course opinion poll really anonymous?
All the answers are anonymized; the University guarantees that the respondent's identity will never be disclosed to anyone. That is also why there is no way of finding out whether he/she has really used his/her name or someone else's when signing his/her additional comments (provided he/she did so).
The course opinion poll is anonymous. Although the students provide their course-related feedback after logging into the Information System is.muni.cz, i.e. under their profiles, the information identifying them such as their names, personal identification numbers (UČOs), etc. is not revealed to anyone.
The reason why the respondents provide their feedback under their profiles and not, for instance, after using some anonymous codes distributed to them is that the latter method would not provide them with the comfort of the former. That is, the System, for instance, keeps track of who has participated in the poll already and thus it can prompt the ones who have not taken part in it yet to do so or it can grant access to the opinion poll results only to those who participated the previous year. Motivating the respondents plays a crucial role in ensuring there are enough of them and thus the feedback they provide is more reliable.
The respondents' willingness to participate in the poll depends on how easy to fill in the questionnaires are, whether the respondents consider the poll useful and, most importantly, whether they find it safe in terms of privacy. This is also the reason why the System administrators consider anonymity to be an issue of high importance. The school management appreciate the effort the students put into providing the course-related feedback. The Information System administrators are prohibited from revealing the respondents' identity to anyone. Any person found violating this rule is to be subject to strict disciplinary proceedings.
As all the operations made in the Information System are recorded, there is always a way of revealing the respondent's identity with some effort invested into it on the part of System administrators. You might therefore feel tempted to ask the question of whether it would be feasible to design the System some other way guaranteeing this cannot be done. Although the answer to this question is "Yes.", designing and administering the System this way would be rather uneconomical. That is, keeping the Internet transactions utterly anonymous (e.g. by not logging the IP addresses of the computers accessing the System, etc.) is complicated. Besides, investing money into the development of a system guaranteeing total anonymity in the environment of a university course opinion poll is pointless since students would have to believe that the poll is run the way it is said to be, i.e. with no cues that might possibly be used to reveal the respondent's identity recorded. The situation would therefore be the same as it is now – the students would have to trust the system. The fact the respondent's identity is never to be revealed to anyone is guaranteed by the school management.
- 3.What courses do students provide their answers for?
Students can only answer the questions related to the courses they have signed up for in the current term. Answers are provided for the teachers listed in the Course Catalogue as lecturers or seminar tutors. On encountering a course or seminar group listing which includes unknown teachers, students are instructed not to respond to such course–teacher combinations or otherwise take advantage of the opportunity to provide "no answer" and thus avoid the distortion of results. Likewise, in case the listing includes a course or seminar group students have not attended, they are encouraged to provide no response.
Answers should always be associated with a specific teacher in case he/she is designated as a lecturer. Students also provide answers to the questions related to the seminar groups in which they have enrolled. Provided a seminar group has several teachers assigned, they do so for these separately. If it is a seminar group which has no teacher specified, it is included in the opinion poll as the one with no teacher assigned. If there are no seminar groups established for the course, then those identified as seminar tutors will be offered to all students in the course for evaluation in the survey.
If a course has no teacher specified, it is included in the opinion poll as the one with no teacher assigned.
No answers are provided for the ones listed as alternate examiners, assistants, or deputies.
- 4.What questions does the course opinion poll include?
Beginning with the autumn 2016 semester, the course opinion poll consists of 6 questions. Since autumn 2023 one new question was added, since autumn 2024 one question was deleted, i.e. still a total of 6 questions.
The first question focuses on the course as a coherent unit within a given semester, i.e. including any seminar groups taking place within the framework of such a course. Only one answer is thus required, regardless of how many teachers are actually associated with such a course. Answer to this question is saved for the entire course (i.e. all course–teacher and seminar group–tutor combinations) regardless of which course teacher or tutor the question was answered for.
The course is of educational value to me; it enriches me. – The question requires students to provide an answer on a scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" with a given statement; if necessary, students may provide "no answer".
Four additional questions are associated with a particular course teacher or seminar group tutor. These questions are answered individually for each teacher. Answers indicate student opinion of each statement, expressed on a scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree"; if necessary, students may provide "no answer".
Odpovědi lze zvolit na škále od „naprosto souhlasím“ po „naprosto nesouhlasím“ s uvedeným výrokem, příp. „nemohu odpovědět“:
- The teacher’s presentation of the subject matter was always clearly intelligible.
- The teacher was always well prepared for class.
- The teacher provided clear information regarding the knowledge and skills that will be evaluated.
- The teacher always communicated with and treated students with respect.
The final question is associated with a particular course teacher or seminar group tutor. This question is optional. Students may provide the teacher with comprehensive feedback, including critical comments as well as a positive evaluation of his/her work.
- In your opinion, what does the teacher excel in? What do you value most in their course or in their approach to teaching? Do you have any recommendations regarding the teacher's lessons or approach to teaching? – The answer provided in the form of a written commentary.
Faculties may include specific questions in the course opinion poll. Faculty-specific questions are mandatory. They are marked with the faculty abbreviation and faculty-specific question sequence number in the course opinion poll form. Faculty-specific questions are only associated with courses taught at a faculty which has opted to include its own questions in the course opinion poll. Faculties making use of this option currently include the MU Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Social Studies, Faculty of Informatics and Faculty of Sports Studies.
Due to their specific nature, CORE courses are assessed using a special set of questions such as scale-based, multiple-choice, or open-ended questions. The questions aim at, among other things, whether the course expanded knowledge within/beyond the scope of the field of study, whether it motivated the enrollment of other courses that broaden the overview, what teaching methods were used, and what teaching materials were provided.
- 5.Course opinion poll results publication
Course opinion poll results are published following the end of the response collection period to those students who completed at least half of their enrolled courses or for no less than ten courses of given semester in total (in order for a course to be considered complete, they must answer all of the mandatory questions [no. 1-5 + faculty-specific questions] for at least one course–teacher or seminar group–tutor combination). Furthermore, course opinion poll results are also displayed to all evaluated teachers and their superiors.
Responses are only published in case all mandatory questions for a given course have been answered by at least 10 % of all enrolled students and no less than five students in total. Students who sufficiently completed the course opinion poll may view the results of all sufficiently filled out courses at MU (except the student written comments). Teachers may additionally view the results of insufficiently filled out courses by clicking on "completed by at least one student" or "containing at least one answer" in the course list.
Students who have just started their first year of study and have not yet had the opportunity to complete the survey automatically see the course survey results from the past several semesters.
- 6.Course opinion poll results format
Questions 1 to 5 required students to provide an answer on a scale from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" with a given statement; if necessary, students were also given the option to provide "no answer". These answers are displayed in an interactive graph with response rates.
The interactive graph allows users to click on an item in order to hide/show the proportion of a selected category in the graph. Placing your cursor on individual response categories will display a percentage; pointing to the question itself will display the full question text (hidden in the case of small screens).
1 Hiding/showing the share of the selected category in the chart.
2 Number of students who answered the question.
Columns next to the graph indicate the number of students who provided answers to a question relevant to a specific course (question 1) or teacher (questions 2 to 5), mean course and teacher score at a given faculty and mean selected course and teacher score.
Question 6 requires students to provide an answer in the form of a voluntary written response which is only displayed to teachers and their superiors (for example course guarantor has the right to read written comments related to course teachers; course lecturer has the right for comments related to seminar tutors and other lecturers as well), i.e. not to students. The Faculty of Social Studies is the only exception to this rule; faculty management have decided to display all written responses anonymously to teachers and students alike. Student comments begin with the wording of the question or course designation and the name of the evaluated course teacher.
Due to their specific nature, CORE courses are assessed using a special set of questions. Their results are displayed similarly with interactive graphs, frequency tables for multiple-choice questions, or a list of written comments.
1 Example of a special set of questions from the evaluation of CORE courses (switched to the new design).
- 7.Teacher responses to results of course opinion poll
Teachers and course guarantors have the opportunity to respond to course opinion poll results by including their comments in a text box located below the results of a given course. They must heed the fact that written student comments may not be displayed for students (they are visible only for teacher and his/her superior). Therefore, should a teacher or a course guarantor wish to react to a written comment, they are encouraged to include the comment itself in their response. Any such responses will appear alongside the results for a given course and teacher.
Moreover, course guarantors have the opportunity to copy their comments either to the entire course (i.e. all course–teacher and seminar group–tutor combinations) or to all courses they guarant.
The teachers and the course guarantors may input their reactions only for a limited time after the results publication. A deadline is shown near the text box for the comments.
1 Teachers can see the button for adding a response to the course opinion poll directly below student’s comments.
2 Example of an inserted response to comments (e.g., from another teacher, seminar tutor).
3 Button for adding a teacher’s response to the course opinion poll results.
- 8.Course opinion poll results sorting
Results may be sorted by course, by question or by respondents.
Results sorted by course: Student responses to questions 1 to 6 are displayed for each selected pair of course–teacher or instructor–seminar combination. Answers to question 1 (i.e. question regarding the course as a whole) are thus repeated for each course teacher and instructor.
Results sorted by question: In the case of question 1 (i.e. question regarding the course as a whole), student responses are only displayed once per course, regardless of the number of selected course teachers and instructors. In the case of questions 2 to 6 (i.e. questions regarding individual teachers), student responses are displayed for each selected course teacher or instructor.
Results sorted by respondents: For each selected pair course–teacher or seminar group–tutor, all replies of individual respondents of the subject opinion poll to individual questions replied by them are displayed in descending order. Answers are provided in word form (i.e. "strongly agree", "agree", "somewhat agree", "somewhat disagree", "disagree", "strongly disagree" or "no answer"); alternatively, students may include a written comment specific to an individual teacher. The respondents are then identified in the list of results solely by their order number so that their identity cannot be compromised.
1 Results sorting options.
- 9.Where are the course opinion poll results located?
Following the end of the response collection period, the results may be found here:
Information System Teacher Students Course Opinion Poll: responses providedShould you have any questions, please contact the Strategy Office of the Rector’s Office at pruzkumy@muni.cz or your faculty's IS MU support at istech@fi.muni.cz.
1 The teacher sees all courses to which he/she is assigned in the Course Catalogue. The lecturer sees all objects of the seminar tutors (and other lecturers) of the given course, including assigned verbal comments. The seminar tutor then sees all the objects of the course but can display the verbal comments only to those that are taught by him/her.
2 After the previous selection of the objects whose results we want to display, it is possible to set different types of their sorting and displaying.
3 Button for displaying the selected course opinion poll results.
When displaying the Course Opinion Poll results, it is possible to sort these results in different ways.
Default sorting by courses displays results by first showing the complete results of one subject, followed by the results of other subjects.
Sorting by questions shows results by first displaying the results of question 1 for all selected courses, then the results of question 2 for all selected courses, and so on. This sorting is convenient, for example, for superiors who want to compare the results of individual teachers according to parameters measured by the poll.
Finally, sorting by respondents shows the results by listing individual particular answers of individual respondents, without the possibility of identifying the specific persons who filled in the poll (respondents are labelled only with a serial number). This view is useful, for example, to verify the consistency of individual student responses and their text comments within a single course or seminar.
The Course Opinion Poll results can be displayed complete (the "all" option), only closed questions (this is how students see the Course Opinion Poll results) or only open text comments without charts can be displayed.
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