Educational research suggests that mid-semester feedback sessions can lead to better instructor evaluations at the end of the semester. Seeking student input shows students that you are engaged and care.
Most students have opinions about your class, and will freely share them if asked. This keeps them involved and engaged.
Schedule a mid-semester feedback session with us! We have streamlined the whole process so it takes around 15 minutes, and uses the student's own smartphone or computer.
With traditional end-of-course evaluations, it is too late to adjust the course to improve the student learning experience for that semester.
Through mid-semester feedback, you have an opportunity to incorporate their ideas and suggestions for improvement. They will see that their feedback leads to an improvement in their own learning experience and thus respond more favorably on end-of-course evaluations.
Beginning with the Mid-Semester Feedback survey (MSF) in Fall 2024, the survey process will be managed using a new software tool.
Blue by Explorance is a high-function survey tool. It allows us to create detailed surveys and provide more agile survey definitions and reporting.
To view your survey results, login to your Blue dashboard at: https://mst.bluera.com/mst
Login with your umsystem user name and password.
On your Home page, scroll down to view the reports available by semester.
Fall 2024 Mid-Semester Feedback is now closed
Schedule for 2024 Fall Mid-Semester Feedback Surveys
Mid-semester feedback surveys allow instructors to ask a wide range of questions. For convenience, the Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence has compiled a list of required questions that are asked of all participants.
Instructors are also welcome to add additional questions that relate directly to their course. To maximize the effectiveness of the surveys, please keep the total number of questions to 20-25. This increases the chances that students will provide meaningful and substantive responses.
The following questions are asked of all respondents on the following scale:
Consistently / Often / Sometimes / Rarely / Never / Not Applicable
"Please rate your instructor on the frequency that they exhibit these qualities and behaviors:"
The following questions are asked of all respondents on the following scale:
Strongly Agree / Somewhat Agree / Neither Agree nor Disagree / Somewhat Disagree / Strongly Disagree / Not Applicable
The following written questions will be asked of your students:
Mid-Semester Feedback is optional and voluntary. Instructors can choose to participate in the survey using the Blue software interface.
Each semester an opt-in time period will be defined and communicated to all faculty registered as instructors in JoeSS.
To select participation:
Click on the link provided in the email notification you receive (each link is personalized to the individual instructor). You will be taken to a screen that shows your course. Select Manage Settings. (NOTE: Once the survey opens for students this screen will show your response rates.)
On the settings screen you can chose to Opt-in (participate) in the Mid-Semester Feedback survey.
There are two sliders. The top slider is to opt-in the course. This must be set to Yes to activate the course survey.
The second slider activates an individual instructor's participation. This slider must be set to Yes if you want to participate in the survey.
TEAM TAUGHT COURSES:
The top slider (the course slider) must be set to Yes for the course to be surveyed. Then each instructor in the course must set the instructor slider to Yes to receive an evaluation of their teaching.
NOTE: It is not required for all instructors in a team taught course to choose to be evaluated.
Instructors can add up to three questions of their own devising. They can add a combination of scaled questions and open-ended questions.
Questions can be a combination of scaled questions
and Open-ended questions
Follow Center for Advancing Faculty Excellence