Student Perceptions of Teaching (SPOT) Evaluations are run using Course Evaluations & Surveys (CES), formerly EvaluationKIT, an external tool that is on Canvas.

This article covers how to collect feedback for courses not in SPOT. For other topics pertaining to SPOT Evaluations, please refer to the main article, Using SPOT - Guide for Department Administrators and Instructors. For student resources, see Using SPOT - Guide for Students.

Contents

• Exclusion Rules
• Using Online Evaluations via Qualtrics
• Getting Help

Exclusion Rules

Courses not provisioned in Canvas are automatically excluded from SPOT. Due to department requests, the following courses are excluded from Canvas and therefore from SPOT:

• All 5904 and 6904 (graduate project and report) courses.
• All 5964, 6864, 7864, 7944, X974 (independent study), and X994 (undergraduate research) courses.
• All VTC, VCOM, and REG courses.

The following courses have been historically excluded for all departments:

• All x964 and x944 courses.
• All courses with five or more instructors. These were excluded in the past to prevent survey fatigue among student respondents. Five instructors, multiplied by 20 questions per instructor, would mean each student in the course would have to answer 100 questions.
• All courses with zero students. These surveys were excluded because they wouldn't collect any responses.

The following courses were excluded from some departments:

• All CHEM 5004, 5894, 5904, 5914, 6904, 6914.
• CEP 4084.
• All EMBA and PMBA courses.
• All VM courses.

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Using Online Evaluations via Qualtrics

To send surveys for excluded courses, use Virginia Tech Qualtrics to create, send, and analyze the survey.

1. To access Qualtrics, go to the Virginia Tech Qualtrics page and log in.
2. Create your survey using the SPOT standard questions and questions you and your department add.
   
   1. Download a copy of the SPOT standard questions: SPOT_Standard_Questions-1.docx.
   2. Add questions your department requires and any other questions you'd like to include.
3. Create the Survey in Qualtrics.
   
   1. Go to Qualtrics at the Virginia Tech Qualtrics page.
   2. Under Active Surveys, click Create a survey and create a survey from scratch.
      
      • As you follow the prompts to create the survey, you will have an option to create from an existing survey if you have one already.
   3. Enter your questions using the question editor. See Qualtrics - Creating Questions for help.
   4. As you work on the survey, your progress will save automatically. Click Preview to preview the survey
   5. Click Publish when the survey is ready to be distributed.
4. Assemble a student list and send the survey.
   
   1. Get a list of student email addresses from Banner.
   2. Creating Mailing Lists for the survey. Enter student names and email addresses into the template provided and save it as a CSV file before uploading the file on Qualtrics.
      

      First Name	Last Name	Email Address
      John	Doe	John_Doe@vt.edu
      Joe	Smith	Joe_Smith@vt.edu

   3. Go to the survey you created for SPOT and make sure it is published and active.
   4. Click on the Distributions tab.
   5. Click Compose Email.
      1. In the Compose Email box, next to To: select the email list you just created.
      2. Add in the Subject and choose when you want to send the email.
      3. Add the message. An example message is below:
         

         Your feedback is important and highly valued! Instructors use it to improve teaching methods and course content. Departments use it for faculty development activities, decisions about promotion and tenure, and faculty evaluation. Aggregated results will be shared with instructors after grades have been submitted for the term. Instructors will not be able to identify which responses belong to which students unless you provide self-identifying information in one of the open-ended items.

      4. To keep SPOT results anonymous, change the Link Type to Anonymous.
      5. Send the email.
5. Analyze results. In the survey you made for SPOT:
   
   1. Click the Data & Analytics tab.
   2. See Data & Analysis Basic Overview for ways to analyze the data.

For Qualtrics training and support, see Using Qualtrics: training and support resources.

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Getting Help

• If you're having issues loading SPOT in Canvas, see Recommended Browser Privacy and Security Settings for Canvas.
• For assistance with SPOT surveys, go to the 4Help Portal, log in, and click Get Help.

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