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Subject and Teacher Evaluation Procedures

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Section 1 - Introduction

(1) These Procedures support the University’s compliance with the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 obligation to ensure “all students have opportunities to provide feedback on their educational experiences and student feedback informs institutional monitoring, review and improvement activities”. These obligations are outlined in the student feedback and evaluation provisions in the Quality Assurance and Enhancement Policy.

(2) The University provides a process that supports students to provide feedback on their subjects and on teaching, and provides UOW Academics with an opportunity to obtain feedback from their students.

(3) Subject and teacher feedback should be used to enhance the quality of subject design and delivery, and for professional development and recognition of teaching academics.

(4) Teaching feedback can be used as evidence in academic probation and promotion applications. This feedback may also be used as a contribution to their personal program of career development.

(5) The University is committed to providing students and staff with a safe and respectful learning and working environment. The University will take action to monitor and to respond to instances of survey free text feedback being made that contravenes University policies related to maintaining a safe and harassment free workplace and learning environment.

(6) These Procedures set out the process for administering the University’s formal online subject and teacher evaluation system, the Subject and Teacher Evaluation Platform (STEP). The STEP system is used to administer Subject Evaluations by Students (SEBS) and Teacher Evaluations by Students (TEBS).

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Section 2 - Scope

(7) These Procedures regulate online administration of SEBS and TEBS surveys using the UOW platform, the STEP system.

(8) These Procedures apply to SEBS survey administration at all teaching locations with the exception of UOW Dubai. Offshore teaching locations may modify and adapt these Procedures as agreed between the delivery location and the Academic Quality and Standards Division (AQS).

(9) These Procedures apply to TEBS survey administration of the teaching delivered by UOW Academics covered by the University of Wollongong (Academic Staff) Enterprise Agreement, 2023 and its successor agreements.

(10) It is essential that both students and staff have confidence in the security and integrity of the evaluation process. Results of SEBS and TEBS surveys are administered having regard to the privacy of students and staff. TEBS survey results are confidential and individual results are only released to the individual academic and can be made available to their supervisor.

(11) Due to the risks to student confidentiality, no subjects or teachers will be surveyed when there are fewer than six (6) enrolments in the relevant survey cohort. UOW Academics teaching classes that have fewer than six (6) enrolments should have their subjects and teaching evaluated using other means such as arranging for independently facilitated and confidential focus group feedback to be obtained, or conducting Peer Observation of Teaching (POT) or Peer Review of Educational Practice (PREP) processes.

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Section 3 - Preparation for the Administration of the SEBS and TEBS Surveys

Subject Coverage

(12) Subjects are surveyed each session at UOW using STEP, subject to the exceptions noted below.

(13) The SEBS survey instrument comprises a set of standard questions approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Strategy and Assurance) and varied from time to time. The instrument aims to be and remain a statistically valid instrument to assist students to provide feedback on their educational experience in subjects, and to provide academic staff with feedback for use in review and improvement of subject design and delivery.

(14) The STEP system has capacity for Subject Coordinators, teaching staff, schools and/or faculties to add optional questions (up to 2 and as multiple choice or free text question(s)) during each evaluation cycle and for each subject or for groups of subjects. Where available, optional questions can only be included to provide meaningful and relevant feedback to UOW Academics on aspects of the learning experience of students in the subject. Optional question banks are available for UOW Academics from AQS.

(15) The SEBS survey instrument is typically administered between Week 10 (for Autumn and Spring sessions) or the second last week of teaching (for Trimesters) and the end of the formal examination period. The STEP system has capacity to facilitate check in surveys to provide meaningful and relevant feedback to UOW Academics on aspects of the learning experience of students in the subject at other times of the session. On deployment, this will provide UOW Academics with capacity to carry out point in time surveying of students.

(16) Surveys are administered for each location where the subject is offered.

Teaching Coverage

(17) Teaching evaluation is carried out using the TEBS survey instrument administered using STEP. The TEBS survey instrument comprises a set of standard questions approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Strategy and Assurance) and varied from time to time. The instrument aims to be and remain a statistically valid instrument to allow UOW Academics to identify strengths in their teaching as well as areas where improvement may be needed.

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Section 4 - Administration of Survey Instruments

(18) AQS is responsible for administering SEBS and TEBS surveys using the STEP system.

(19) AQS will ensure that all required online SEBS and TEBS surveys are available online to students and that students are provided with an initial electronic invitation and with regular reminders to complete available surveys until the close of surveys.

(20) UOW Academics are highly influential in promoting good response rates to surveys. UOW Academics being evaluated or responsible for subjects under evaluation are encouraged to:

  1. promote and publicise the SEBS and/or TEBS surveys to their students including using the QR code generated by STEP, promotional slides and written or oral advice to students; and
  2. allocate time during synchronous online or face to face teaching in which students are asked to complete the SEBS and TEBS surveys.

(21) AQS may administer promotional campaigns to support improved response rates among students.

(22) UOW Academics and AQS are able to monitor student responses in real time via the STEP system. AQS and UOW Academics will use these data in determining the number and nature of student communications encouraging completion of the SEBS and TEBS surveys.

(23) UOW Academics who require but are unable to obtain statistically valid teaching evaluation results are encouraged to use other means of gathering student feedback on their teaching such as arranging for independently facilitated and confidential focus group feedback to be obtained, or conducting Peer Observation of Teaching (POT) or Peer Review of Educational Practice (PREP) processes.

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Section 5 - Compilation and Distribution of Survey Data

(24) AQS will administer the STEP system to generate individual and aggregate SEBS and TEBS Reports. These are sent to responsible UOW Academics electronically and include data on responses received and access to any free text comments.

(25) SEBS and TEBS Reports are made available as follows:

  1. aggregated SEBS School Summary Reports containing a summary of all the subjects evaluated at the school for the relevant session;
  2. aggregated SEBS Course Summary Reports containing a summary of all subject evaluations by students by course for the relevant session;
  3. aggregated Faculty SEBS Summary Reports containing a summary of all subjects surveyed at the Faculty for the relevant session;
  4. an individual SEBS Report for each subject for the relevant session; and
  5. an individual TEBS Report for each UOW Academic who sought a TEBS survey of their teaching for the relevant session.

(26) TEBS survey reports can be used as evidence in Academic Promotion and Academic Probation Applications and should be used in the annual career development interview to support professional development.

(27) All SEBS and TEBS survey reports, including the open text responses, are made available to staff authorised to have access to these reports and responses after the release of student results.

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Section 6 - Maintaining Security, Storage and Privacy

(28) The University must maintain strict procedures regarding the use of responses to SEBS and TEBS surveys to ensure legislative compliance, including maintaining the privacy of survey respondents and storage of data.

(29) Information should not be published, presented or disseminated by staff in any way that might enable individual students to be identified.

Security of Data

(30) It is the responsibility of the Director, Academic Quality and Standards or their delegated representative to ensure that a Data Custodian is appointed for the collection and handling of SEBS and TEBS data.

(31) Data Custodians have delegated administrative responsibility for controlling data collections within their mandates. In undertaking their role, Data Custodians have responsibility for establishing and maintaining an acceptable level of protection for the data, for managing the disclosure of data, for ensuring that the privacy of personal information is protected, that the data is used only in accordance with the reasons for which it was collected and that the data itself complies with these guidelines.

(32) The nominee of the Director, Academic Quality and Standards has authority to approve or restrict access of individuals to specific data within the STEP system when it is requested.

Access to STEP Data

(33) Selected staff in AQS have access to the raw survey data via the STEP system. All relevant staff are bound by strict obligations under the University Code of Conduct including confidentiality and privacy obligations.

(34) Nominated persons of the Director, Academic Quality and Standards with presumptive access to STEP data relevant to the University or to their Faculty or School are:

  1. members of the Senior Executive of UOW.
  2. Director, Enterprise Data.
  3. Faculty Executive Deans, Associate Deans Education, Executive Managers, and Heads of School.

(35) There are four distinct tiers for use of STEP data, each with a different level of access to the data and different kinds of information provision.

Tier 1 - Publicly Available Information

(36) The posting of information on the UOW Intranet or the UOW public website will be via generation of reports that will require approval from the Director, Academic Quality and Standards prior to posting.

Tier 2 Reports

(37) SEBS Summary Reports will be generated after each session. These reports do not contain identifying information about UOW Academics or students. These reports are available to Faculty Executive Deans, Executive Managers, Associate Deans Education, Associate Deans (Student Life), Heads of School, Academic Program Directors and relevant professional staff on approval from the nominee of the Director, Academic Quality and Standards.

(38) The individual SEBS and TEBS survey reports and the free text response reports will be published to staff authorised to have access to these reports and responses.

Tier 3 Access to Data

(39) STEP system data is stored in the STEP system. Faculty Executive Deans, Associate Deans Education and Heads of School may request access to data for their faculty or school. This access is to provide the opportunity to investigate and analyse student responses.

(40) This data set will contain aggregated data and will be managed to ensure that student privacy is maintained and that individual students are not identified.

Tier 4 Raw Data

(41) The Director, Academic Quality and Standards, their nominee and Senior Executive of UOW will have full access to all available data in the STEP system. In addition selected staff in AQS responsible for administering the STEP platform will have access to the raw data.

Ensuring Student Confidentiality

(42) SEBS Summary Reports are appropriately aggregated ensuring individual students are not identified.

(43) Refer to clause 11 for processes to obtain feedback where there are less than six (6) enrolled students in a survey cohort.

Storage, Retention and Disposal of Survey Data

(44) Retention and disposal of subject and teacher evaluation data will be in accordance with the NSW State Records Act and the NSW Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998.

(45) Stored data will not be used for any purpose other than those outlined in these Procedures.

Compliance with Legislation and Standards

(46) Information intended for publication or presentation should comply with the requirements of:

  1. relevant legislation, principles and guidelines relating to data management and the protection of privacy and confidentiality.
  2. relevant standards, policies or recognised best practice for the presentation and analysis of statistical data.
  3. requirements imposed by the owners of any data sets used.
  4. any conditions placed on use of the data as a result of ethical or legal advice.

Access to Information

(47) The University of Wollongong is bound by the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009 (“GIPA Act”) in providing public access to University information. Any Access to Information applications received by the University relating to SEBS or TEBS data will be managed by the Office of General Counsel.

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Section 7 - Maintaining the Subject Evaluation Web Information

Quality Improvement

(48) Subject evaluation data will provide an important set of insights into the quality of education at the University. To ensure subject evaluation data is effectively used it is important that data is embedded into the University’s planning and quality assurance processes.

(49) Once data is released, Faculties, working with AQS and other central units, are responsible for identifying educational quality issues raised by the data including particular subjects or groups of subjects potentially requiring improvement, outstanding successes and upward or downward trends . Central units are responsible for identifying and responding to any issues relating to the quality of services and facilities provided centrally.

(50) Where possible, subject evaluation data should also feed into the identification and monitoring of Subjects of Interest and Courses of Interest.

Feedback

(51) Efforts will also be made to communicate to students some of the actions which have been taken to improve individual subjects as a result of feedback provided through subject evaluation. Academic staff will be required to assist and contribute to this communication process through the Subject Outline as stated in the Subject Delivery Policy. Examples of feedback include:

  1. “Recent improvements to the subject include requiring students to write a reflective journal as part of the assessment. Reflective journals are often used in professional learning settings including the health and teaching professions to encourage self-awareness and conscious skill development.”
  2. “The tutorial activities have also changed to introduce a number of practical, but not directly assessed, tutorial activities in the first half of the subject. These activities will build on and reinforce the lecture material in a practical way, and give students confidence as communicators before formal assessment begins.”
  3. “In 20XX this subject will be using two different textbooks to those used in recent years. In particular students provided feedback indicating that they would like to use a bioethics text that was written in a language they found more accessible and that more overtly acknowledged the ethical challenges faced by registered nurses engaged in clinical practice.”

Publishing Data on the University website

(52) Consistent with the Plan-Act-Review-Improve quality cycle, and to support open and accountable educational practice, the University is committed to ensuring high level aggregated results of subject evaluations are displayed on the University website. AQS will be responsible for producing and loading results onto relevant webpages and results will be updated at least annually on the website.

(53) AQS will maintain relevant resource material on the UOW Intranet for the use of staff.

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Section 8 - Roles and Responsibilities

All Staff

(54) All staff employed within the University are personally responsible, within their roles, for maintaining the privacy, integrity and security of data held and managed by their work unit, and for reporting any suspected breach of Procedure. This responsibility is formally acknowledged in an undertaking to observe privacy and confidentiality obligations and the responsibilities of staff regarding public comment as part of staff obligations under the University Code of Conduct.

Academic Quality and Standards Division

(55) The Director, Academic Quality and Standards nominates data custodians and gives approval for access to data in the STEP system.

(56) The Academic Quality and Standards Division is responsible for:

  1. implementing the SEBS and TEBS components of the UOW Quality Assurance and Enhancement Policy;
  2. providing a secure and confidential teacher evaluation process for all UOW Academic staff;
  3. coordinating the survey delivery process with Faculties and Schools;
  4. providing promotion and ongoing communication services to assist with raising response rates;
  5. distributing the survey results for SEBS and TEBS surveys including individual and summary reports;
  6. records management of the records within the STEP system;
  7. monitor survey activity to support the safety and wellbeing of students and staff; and
  8. maintaining these procedures.

Faculty Staff

(57) Faculty Administrators are responsible for:

  1. providing to AQS accurate and timely information on sessional teaching staff teaching in any session; and
  2. supporting where necessary, the efficient administration of the SEBS and TEBS processes.

(58) Subject Coordinators and other teaching academic staff are responsible for:

  1. supporting the timely and effective administration of SEBS and TEBS surveys;
  2. requesting from AQS or opting in for invitations to carry out TEBS surveys in accordance with instructions provided by AQS.
  3. promoting the SEBS and TEBS surveys to their students, including where practicable to do so, providing time during face to face or online delivery for students to complete survey instruments;
  4. including, where sought, appropriate optional question information in surveys;
  5. reviewing the results of SEBS and TEBS surveys and identifying issues for improvement in their subject or in their professional development as teaching academics as applicable,; and
  6. liaising with other relevant Faculty staff in relation to the implementation of subject improvements.

(59) HoS/Faculty Managers and other Faculty/School staff with authority are responsible for administering subject teacher allocations efficiently to facilitate accurate identification of UOW Academics and their roles in delivery of subjects.

(60) UOW Academics, including Discipline Leaders, APDs, Heads of School and other supervisors are responsible for utilising SEBS and TEBS reports for the monitoring and improvement of learning and teaching, and in the case of TEBS, to support UOW Academics to monitor and improve their performance.

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Section 9 - Definitions

Word/Term Definition (with examples if required)
SEBS Subject Evaluation by Students survey.
SEBS or TEBS Summary Report Aggregated results of the student responses.
STEP Subject and Teacher Evaluation Platform, a proprietary software system licensed by UOW for administering SEBS or TEBS surveys.
TEBS Teacher Evaluation by Students survey.
UOW University of Wollongong
UOW Academic Academic staff of the University of Wollongong (whether continuing, contract, sessional or casual) who carry out teaching responsibilities under the authority of the Head of Academic Unit.