Spring Break
SETs give way to new online Student Ratings of Instruction
Greg Gentile
Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: News
|
At the end of each semester, students evaluate their professors based on a series of questions on a Scantron. The SETs were programmed and developed at URI 35 years ago.
It is a contractual obligation between the American Association for University Professors and the university that professors must undergo an evaluation.
Since its creation, the results for the SETs would be stored on microfilm in the University Library on the Kingston campus. The results were never compiled because of the time and cost it would take.
"The old SETs never helped any of us students, I would rather just look on ratemyprofessor.com," sophomore Ross Crory said.
The results of a professor's scores were rarely used besides being used during a professor's time of promotion or tenure, according to professor and Department Chair of Computer Science and Statistics James Kowalski.
Ten years ago, the Faculty Senate Executive Council did a self-study for reaccreditation. It concluded that the SET system needed to be retired and a new system needed to be put in its place.
The IDEA Center, which originated at Kansas State University during the 1960s, created the new SRI system. The evaluation program is used nationwide by many accredited universities, including University of Washington and New Mexico University.
The center is now an independent and nonprofit organization. It offers the IDEA-SRI, a student evaluation program to thousands of universities.
"We decided a couple years ago that this was a good avenue to go," Kowalski said.
Be the first to comment on this story