In this interview series we talk to higher education professionals like you about their experience with Watermark and how they’re using our tools to make an impact on their campus.
Read on to hear from your peer Dr. Chelsea Frazier, Coordinator of CETL Operations, about their experience with Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys.
I started in my position at Oklahoma City University in July of 2023, and during my interview process, my boss talked about how they were going to come up with this new course evaluation system. I was going to be the facilitator of course evaluations on campus. Shortly after I started my boss is like, “I’m putting you on this call with this company called Watermark. They have a course evaluation and survey product that they’re going to demo. I just want you to be a fly on the wall.” All I knew at the time was that our old system was broken. Faculty were unable to get the reports from the spring semester. They weren’t even able to log into the system. So it was very much a need at that moment to move on from our old project, because we weren’t getting the support.
One is our response rate. So prior to instituting Course Evaluations & Surveys, we had about a 30% response rate, and now we’re sitting between a 50% and a 55% response rate every semester, so it’s helped with our response rates because of the ability to link it to our LMS.
Reporting is much simpler. The data that faculty are getting is much clearer, and it’s a lot easier for them to get.
And then just the ease and the usability of it. Being able to link, not only for our students to our LMS, but our faculty are able to see what their current response rates are. And as the administrator of the projects, I’m able to let the faculty know at any given moment, “This is how many students have responded to your survey. And here are ways that you can continue to help students.”
I think the use of Course Evaluations & Surveys has really helped our students and our faculty understand the importance of course evaluations, and we’re really trying to change the culture around that. As an adjunct professor myself, I’ve had conversations with my students like, “Hey, why don’t you fill out your surveys? Or do you fill out surveys for every class?” And just trying to understand both why faculty feel the way that they do about their course evaluation, like the whole course evaluation process, and then also why students feel the way they do. And trying to bring those two sides together to figure out what’s the best route for the entire campus.
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