UOSA has collaborated with the Web site Pick-A-Prof.com to make written teacher evaluations available to students as PDF files on the Web site.

Students will now have access to five items on the course evaluation questionnaires, which will vary for each college, said Nancy Mergler, senior vice president and provost.

Chelsea Render, international business senior and UOSA president, said she has been working toward the goal to grant students easier access to teacher evaluations for almost a year.

"This is just another way to help students choose their classes more wisely," Render said. "It's been a goal of UOSA for a long time, which is why we are so excited it is finally happening."

Picking a Professor

o Written evaluations have been available to students since 1994, but will now be offered in PDF format on the Pick-A-Prof Web site.

o Questions that will be answered pertain to the amount learned in class, the effectiveness of teaching styles and quality of course materials.

Source: Nancy Mergler, OU provost;Chelsea Render, UOSA president

Render said she hopes to have the information available in PDF format at the Pick-A-Prof Web site in the next several weeks.

"We have yet to decide how it will appear on the site," Render said. "Whatever will create more accessibility for students and is possible for Pick-A-Prof."

Mergler said because each college has their own course evaluation questionnaires with slightly different questions pertinent to their own curriculum, this has been a complicated process.

Each college has selected five key items from the course evaluations which are ranked in categories such as strongly agree to strongly disagree and excellent to poor.

Mergler said the questions deal mostly with the amount learned and quality of instruction as compared to other courses within the same academic unit.

Mergler and Render said the change from paper to electronic format has been a collaborative effort with Pick-A-Prof, Staff Senate, Information Technology and individual college deans and professors.

Around 80 percent of professors agreed to release their evaluations, said Jeticia Sistrunk, microbiology sophomore and UOSA communications coordinator.

Gary Hawkins, expository writing professor, said he thought highly of a similar evaluation system in place when he taught at Rice University in Houston.

"It's potentially unnerving, but a good thing," Hawkins said. "It lets the students have as much information as they can."

Render said she thinks other universities like Texas A&M and Baylor have been successful with similar systems on Pick-A-Prof.

Chelsea Scudder, University College freshman, said she will use her access to teacher evaluations to make better decisions about classes.

"For me, it's really important to have a teacher who's interested in the subject matter and does a good job of including the class," Scudder said. "I have hated classes before because of professors."

Other students said they question the validity of information gathered from evaluations that most students don't take seriously.

"I'd say only four or five people actually fill them out right," said Ray Wingfield, criminology senior. "I don't think it will be accurate at all."

Wingfield said he only uses Pick-A-Prof to look at the average grades teachers issue and that he will select classes on that basis.

Hawkins said he thinks the narrative evaluations currently available on Pick-A-Prof have their benefits over statistics.

"I think it's much more suspect if all they are posting is numerical. Those aren't as precise as narrative," Hawkins said.

Hawkins said he thinks students should have access to narratives from others as well as compiled statistics from all students.

He said he realizes, however, that narratives are generally only from students whose feelings are extreme enough to write a review.

Render said she recognizes some students don't take the evaluations seriously.

"I have enough faith in the student body that students do take it seriously," Render said. "Currently, there's only an optional review, so those are the students that feel strongly or negatively that review them."

Render said she thinks the change will provide a more cohesive review by providing the average student opinions.

"This is something that students have told us that they want. If it's not, we'll keep working to figure out what that is," Render said.

Render said UOSA plans to form another task force to decide whether to remove optional review completely and whether to renew OU's contract with Pick-A-Prof in April.

"We will find out from students whether they like the optional review and what students see as most effective," Render said.
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