Using electronic meeting systems for subject and course evaluation

The University of South Australia requires all lecturers to conduct evaluations of their subjects. The form of the evaluation can be chosen by the individual lecturer. Many lecturers have found that standard questionnaires give quite superficial feedback-students fill them out in a hurry, and often the feedback is not helpful in giving ideas for improvement. We have been using an electronic meeting system (GroupSystems V) to evaluate a number of subjects. The system preserves the necessary anonymity while allowing electronic conversations to take place, thus achieving cross-fertilisation of ideas and suggestions for subject improvement. These electronic conversations are printed out, giving the lecturer an immediate hard-copy record of students´ ideas for contemplation and comparison over time. As a result, we have found this a valuable method for achieving actual quality improvements in subjects, as against simply rating a subject