by Christopher Sanchez
Daily Lobo
Students will no longer have to fill out ICES forms at the end of every semester starting next year.
That's because the UNM Course Evaluation Committee is looking to phase them out by 2007.
About 15 UNM faculty, staff and students attended a public forum Wednesday to discuss replacing the forms.
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The Instructional Course Evaluation System, a tool for students to evaluate course instructors, will no longer be used because of various flaws, said Yemane Asmerom, chairman of the committee.
One reason the evaluation forms are being phased out is because UNM is changing to the Banner System, a server-based system, which will not integrate with the ICES forms, Asmerom said.
Another reason is the ICES forms do not adequately evaluate classes, he said.
"In a sense it's a popularity contest," he said. "Easily graded courses get better ICES scores."
Students also find the ICES problematic because they believe their input will not have an effect, Asmerom said.
UNM graduate student Elisabeth Stone attended the forum and said students do not put any effort into the form, because students do not see results from them.
"You fill them out, and you never see them again," she said. "If you don't get any benefits, you don't get any results."
Stone said she attended New York University for her undergraduate studies, and the university allowed students to view the results of teacher evaluations on the school's Web site. She said the form was effective, because she was able to look at professors' evaluations before signing up for courses. She said UNM should adopt that system.
"I think it is super effective," she said. "After I learned the system, I never took a class that I regretted."
Asmerom said teacher evaluations are used to improve instruction and provide feedback to the instructor. The evaluations used to determine tenured promotions, merit pay and awards, he said.
"It's a way of ranking instructors," he said.
Asmerom emphasized that teacher evaluations are important.
"The ICES are used in colleges to make decisions. I can assure you ICES scores are considered very serious," he said.
The committee was formed to help find a different teacher evaluation system, he said. The committee includes members from a number of colleges and departments, he said.
Gary Smith, a professor in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, said he would be content with using the evaluation forms in the future, but the system does have its flaws.
"Some things in ICES are just flat out confusing," he said. "Sometimes the most positive answer is on the left side, sometimes the most positive is on the right."
He said some students may think all the answers on the right side of the form are positive, and bubble in all the right side not knowing they could have filled out a negative answer for a question.
Asmerom said the ideal teacher evaluation system would assess the quality of the instructor and material, and would also be used to improve problem areas. He said other instructors and students might have different ideas.
"I can tell you what I think, but we really want to know what the faculty, staff and students want from the evaluations," he said.
Asmerom said the public forum was held to give students, faculty and staff a progress report about the efforts being made to replace the evaluation forms. Input from the forums will help the committee find a viable alternative, he said.
