University of Nevada
School of Dental Medicine
Simplifying Course Evaluations
Applications Used:
About
The University of Nevada – Las Vegas School of Dental Medicine has been providing Nevada with well-versed dentists who are able to address the state’s needs and dentist shortages, especially in rural areas, since it opened in 2002.
The Challenge
The UNLV School of Dental Medicine had tried to use systems for course and instructor evaluations in the past, but between usability, reporting, and support, it hadn’t been able to find a comprehensive system to meet its specific needs. UNLV needed to improve response rates and wanted weekly reminders sent out to students so that they would actually fill out their evaluations in a timely manner. They needed to aggregate reporting related to response averages and course departments. Above all, UNLV needed a system that was more intuitive that more people throughout the school would be able to understand and use.
The Solution
Having tried a number of different processes before working with AllofE on eValuate, the school had very clear goals in terms of decreasing the number of steps it took to administer evaluations to the students. They needed to be able to run reports on means related to departments, courses, faculty, and even sets of questions within their evaluation forms. The UNLV SDM provided AllofE with its requirements and desired reports, and AllofE configured the eValuate system to help automate administering anonymous evaluations to students and track non-respondents to help improve response rates.
The Effect
Bill Davenport, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, was amazed at how quickly AllofE was able to build a report that brought back everything he had been looking for.
Once AllofE understood all the specific details and reports the program needed, they got to work customizing eValuate to suit their unique needs. They recognized improved results within the first semester of implementation. They previously had to manually calculate a number of different types of averages based on their evaluation results.
The UNLV SDM is also using eMedley’s eCurriculum to manage standardizing each course director’s syllabus format and is actively using eCurriculum to run reports based on coverage of the school’s competencies.
Moving Forward
With eCurriculum and eValuate, the University of Nevada Las Vegas plans to analyze course coverage and student feedback longitudinally moving forward to further revolutionize the students’ learning and experiences while in the program.