ISU students may see some changes in the professor-evaluation process as members of the Government of the Student Body work to revamp the current system. GSB President Ben Golding said changing teacher evaluations was part of his platform while campaigning for his position last spring. “I think the process we have now isn’t a useful system and doesn’t serve the purpose it’s meant to serve,” he said. “Students don’t put enough weight into them, and we would like to change that. If students put more effort into them, it would make the evaluations more useful to both students and faculty.” Faculty Senate President David Hopper said Golding presented a proposal for an online course evaluation system to the Faculty Senate Executive Board last April. “Ben brought his proposal to the attention of the provost’s office and Vice Provost [Howard] Shapiro,” Hopper said. Katie Rau, co-director of academic affairs for GSB, said one of her goals is to make some portion of the evaluation information available to students. “I believe that making evaluations more valuable to students would make them more valuable to faculty,” she said. T. J. Schneider, co-director of academic affairs for GSB, said he has been working with Rau on a plan of action to present at an Oct. 5 meeting with members of GSB, Faculty Senate and the provost’s office. “I really don’t think we’re trying to completely change the system; it’s more about how to make the system more effective for students and faculty,” he said. “I think if some things were done differently, it could help faculty re-evaluate course work and make it more beneficial to students.” Schneider said he has some ideas of how to make evaluations more useful to both students and faculty. “We want to develop a set or section of questions that would be the same on all evaluations. These questions, and the students’ answers to them, could be posted online so all courses and lectures have the same criteria that students could look at,” he said. “Also, programs could have some of their own questions too that could be used to let students know what the course is like and what to expect.” Currently, ISU students fill out teacher evaluations at the end of every semester before finals week. The forms include questions about the class lecture, work load and testing aspects of the class. Students are also asked their opinion of the instructor’s class performance and of the class overall. The teacher-evaluation information is not available to students. “Right now, evaluation information is mainly used by professors and department heads to gauge course productivity. Students don’t get to see any of it,” Schneider said. Golding said GSB is working very closely with the university on this project. “We want this to be a solid system,” Golding said. “We’re also using [evaluation] models from the University of Colorado, the University of Florida, the University of Washington and California Polytechnic Institute to help us.” Rau said several proposals have already been drafted, but it is too early to say exactly what changes might be made to the evaluation process. “I think our goal is in six months to the end of the year to have something more concrete in the works,” she said. “Our next meeting in October will be to help determine which direction we want to go.” Hopper said all groups involved in this process have a common objective. “I believe that all parties have a shared goal of improving teaching and learning, and the Faculty Senate will certainly do all it can to achieve this goal,” he said.