Teachers' Guide | Graduate School of Life Sciences

Course evaluation

If you are the coordinator of a course, an evaluation procedure is in place. The Educational Committee analyzes the evaluations of the various curriculum components annually. 

If the information below does not answer your question, you can send an e-mail to the Caracal team: 

Procedure

If you are a course coordinator, the instructions below apply. If you are teaching a course but you are not coordinating it, please keep in touch with the course coordinator regarding the evaluation. 

  1. Three weeks before the end of your course, you will receive an e-mail of Caracal inviting you to review the questionnaire and to add questions specific to your course. You have 10 working days to add new questions. After that, the evaluation will be open for your students. 
  1. The e-mail of Caracal contains a link for your students. As course coordinator, you are responsible for sharing this link with your students at the right time and encouraging a high response rate. Tips for high response rates can be found below.  
  1. When the questionnaire is closed, two weeks after the course end date, you have access to the results and will be asked to respond to the results of the evaluation in Caracal. You will have two weeks to enter the response. The Educational Committee carefully looks at the course evaluation results and your response, so it is very important that you respond to your students comments. Make sure you include the following points: remarks from students, changes made compared to the previous edition, proposed changes for next year, and which other insights have been gained (outside Caracal). If you wish to write a private response not shared with students, an attachment can be uploaded in Caracal. 

After sending your response, students have access to the results from their colleagues as well as your response.  

  • The Educational Committee and Assessment Support Panel will have access to the results and the course coordinators’ response of all course evaluations. 
  • The degree and programme director/coordinator will also have access to the results and will be asked to reflect on them in the annual programme reports. 

Add new questions in Caracal

The GSLS uses a standard questionnaire for the course evaluations. You can add up to three questions to ask specific information about your course. 

To add questions, follow these steps: 

  1. Log in to Caracal with your SolisID via www.caracal.uu.nl.  
  1. In the home screen, you will see the courses you are coordinating. Click on ‘Edit the survey’. 
  1. You have the options to see what the survey already looks like and to edit the survey. 
  1. Click on ‘Edit the survey’ if you want to add questions.  
  1. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click or drag the desired icon to add a question. The legend explains the different types of questions that can be added (see red boxes in the image below). You can choose between different types of questions: open text, multiple choice, numeric question, etc.  
  1. Please make sure that you write exactly the same in the Dutch and English boxes.  
  1. Your new question will appear at the bottom of the list. Please drag it under the heading ‘Additional questions from the course coordinator’ (see black box and arrow in the image below). 

Tips for high response rates

For most courses, the best moment to evaluate the course is right after the final exam or, alternatively, the last moment in which all students are present. Students may also fill out the questionnaire after the course at home. 

You can consider the following:  

  1. If you use ULearning for your courses, include the link or QR code for the evaluation in the platform.  
  1. Reserve 10-15 minutes in the last lecture for students to fill in the evaluation and, if you decide so, to receive oral feedback about the course. 
  1. Explain to your students that a high response rate is required for the Educational Committee to get a full picture of the quality of the course. 
  1. Send a reminder by email one week after the course finishes to your students to complete the evaluation. 

Standard questionnaire courses

 Thank you for taking the time to fill out this evaluation and thereby contributing to the development of the GSLS education. The answers are anonymous. The results of this questionnaire will reach the course coordinator, the programme coordinators, the Assessment Support Panel and the Educational Committee. The course coordinator will have the chance to respond to the results of this survey and their response will be visible for you in Caracal. Further action will be taken by the applicable person/committee when applicable.    
Master’s programme: [drop down + option “I am a PhD student”]  
COMMUNICATION    
Regarding the general information provided before and during the course: To what extent was this information clearly communicated?  Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
Regarding the organization of the course: to what extent were your question(s) answered?  Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
Do you have any remarks about the communication during the course? Concrete suggestions are appreciated.   Yes: …
No  
EDUCATIONAL DESIGN & CONTENT    
How did this course align with your previous knowledge and experience?    The course did not align at all and this was a problem  
The course did not align well and this was a problem   
The course did not align well and this was not a problem   
The course aligned well  
The course aligned perfectly  
To what extent was there coherence between the different topics in this course?  There was no coherence at all and this was a problem  
There was little coherence and this was a problem  
There was little coherence and this was not a problem  
There was sufficient coherence  
There was great coherence  
To what extent were the learning objectives clear to you?      The learning objectives were insufficiently clear to me.   
The learning objectives were sufficiently clear to me.   
The learning objectives were very clear to me.   
I did not use the learning objectives.  
To what extent were the teaching formats (e.g., lecture, project, self-study, etc.) suited for this course?  Very insufficient  Insufficient  Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  Sufficient  Very sufficient   
Do you have any remarks about the teaching formats used in the course?  Yes: …
No  
To what extent was the teaching method (e.g., life, hybrid/blended, online, etc.) suited for this course?   Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
To what extent did you learn new useful things during this course?   Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
Do you have any remarks about the design of the course? Concrete suggestions are appreciated.     Yes: …
No
ASSESSMENT    
Regarding the assessment of the course: To what extent was clear what to expect?  Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
To what extent was the assessment representative of the course content?    Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
Do you have any remarks about the assessment? Concrete suggestions/examples are appreciated.   Yes: …
No  
TIME ALLOCATION    
Did your time investment align with the educational credits awarded for this course? (1 EC = 28 hours).    Yes  
No, there was more time invested, which was a problem  
No, there was more time invested but it was not a problem  
No, there was less time invested, which was a problem  
No, there was less time invested but it was not a problem  
To what extent was there a good balance between contact hours and self-study time?  Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
Do you have any remarks about the time allocation? Concrete suggestions are appreciated.   Yes: …
No  
ADDITIONAL FROM QUESTIONS COURSE COORDINATOR    
Space for a maximum of 3 additional questions from the course coordinator (all types)    
GENERAL    
To what extent was the environment in this course safe and oriented towards learning?  Very insufficient  
Insufficient  
Neither insufficient, neither sufficient  
Sufficient  
Very sufficient  
How do you appraise the whole course?  I am dissatisfied  
I am satisfied  
I am very satisfied  
What would be your appraisal of this course expressed in Dutch grades? (3 = “deep F”, 4 = F, 5 = D, 6 = C, 7 = B, 8 = A, 9 = A+, 10 = unsurpassed)  1-10  
Do you have any final remarks?