SEI Changes

There are changes happening with the end-of-course student surveys, based on recommendations endorsed by the UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan Senates.

Resources related to these changes

Background

A Student Evaluations of Teaching Working Group was formed at UBC in Spring 2019, with membership from both UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan. The group’s remit included:

  • reviewing the research on student evaluations of teaching (including UBC data), particularly with an eye to bias,
  • reviewing the common university questions on the questionnaires on both campuses and suggesting possible changes,
  • recommending appropriate metrics and methods of presentation for reporting data. 

Please see the group’s Terms of Reference for a list of members and more detail about their remit.

The working group consulted extensively with multiple constituencies on both campuses, and provided a final report to both Senates in May 2020 (see p. 85 for a list of community consultations). That report included sixteen recommendations about student evaluations of teaching, which were endorsed by both the UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan Senates. 

The working group was disbanded after presenting the report to both Senates, and in the summer of 2020 a Student Experience of Instruction (SEI) Steering Committee and an SEI Implementation Committee were formed (please see a list of members for both committees in 2020-2021). These are charged with implementing the Senate-endorsed recommendations and reporting to Senates via the respective sub-committees. 

Additional Information

Please see the following pages for more details on these recommendations, and what is changing as a result.

  • Senate Recommendations: List of the sixteen recommendations, and details on the timeline for implementation
  • Revised Questions: Changes to the university module questions on the student surveys were implemented in Fall 2021
  • SEI Metrics: Information on the metrics used to report results