Weinberg Fall Seminars

Colleges & Universities Northwestern University
7

<p>Look your profs up on CTEC ( <a href=“http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/ctec/[/url]”>http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/ctec/&lt;/a&gt; )</p>

<p>CTEC comments are often more valuable than the numerical ratings.</p>

<p>From the Daily:</p>

<p>Editorial: CTEC reforms will aid learning</p>

<p>May 27, 2004</p>

<p>Two of the greatest philosophers of the past century, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, once remarked that the love you take is equal to the love you make. The CTEC system, which has been a priceless source of information for students during registration, finally is receiving the love it deserves.</p>

<p>A mandatory online CTEC system will debut in the fall – not in 2005 as Wednesday’s Daily stated. Students who do not fill out CTEC surveys will be prohibited from reading evaluations the next quarter. A new online system not only will make the process more efficient and remove elements of professorial meddling but ensure that students who mooch off CTECs do their fair share in providing future students with an accurate account of their experiences.</p>

<p>The new system needs teeth to reverse the trend of low responses for online evaluations. Paper CTECs yield much higher return rates than online evaluations. When few students respond, the results may misrepresent the quality of a course or professor. Ensuring accurate and representative CTECs also will have great value to individual departments, as student opinion plays a large role in determining promotions for professors and teaching assistants.</p>

<p>Administrators need to take steps, however, to prevent students from carelessly filling in responses to get the evaluations done quickly. Typically students with overwhelmingly positive or negative experiences in a course will take the time to voice their opinions, but the silent majority of students who skip evaluations may be tempted to take the easy way out in the mandatory system. Northwestern’s technology gurus surely can come up with some method to identify and dismiss these anomalies, thus completely fulfilling CTECs’ potential.
<a href=“http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/05/27/40b5b5d20f7f8?in_archive=1[/url]”>http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/05/27/40b5b5d20f7f8?in_archive=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;