Selection of Courses to be Evaluated
The selection of the courses to be evaluated is the responsibility of the study commission. It is ensured that all course types are adequately considered and each instructor will have a course evaluated at least every three years (§ 9 Principles of the Quality Management System for Teaching and Learning at the TU Dresden). Further regulations regarding the conduction of course evaluations were made in the senate decision of November 11th, 1998. Both the selection of the course as well as the underlying selection criteria are to be announced internally to the faculty or department and outlined in the yearly report of the study commission or in the teaching report of the faculty or department.
Together with the student representatives, the study commission decides on the concrete specifications for the evaluation procedure. The commission provides clarification about the way in which the evaluation for each course will be conducted, depending on the specifics of the course. The commission also reviews this in their yearly report. In addition, the study commission appoints a person responsible for the evaluation for other organizational matters. This person is responsible for all further questions and for the collaboration with the ZQA. The ZQA provides organizational and technical support concerning the edv-supported acquisition and evaluation of the questionnaires (including creating and printing the questionnaires).
More frequent course evaluations are of course possible. Courses given by non-professorial teaching staff, lecturers etc. can also be evaluated. Necessary information (type of course, title, expected number of participants, other instructors if applicable, email address for sending the results) may be given to the person responsible for the evaluation at the beginning of the semester.
Section 7, paragraph 4 of the evaluation regulations of the TU Dresden (in conjunction with § 9 paragraph 3 of the SächsHSG) states that course evaluation is necessary. One objective of the course evaluations is for instructors to receive feedback from the students in order to continually improve their instruction. Another reason is that the results enable the TU Dresden to assess the teaching situation and to develop strategies for improving the teaching.
Participation from each student is extremely important being as the instruction at the TU can only be improved through constructive criticism. Students should not hesitate to ask the instructor to address the evaluation results at the end of the semester (approximately one month after the survey). The instructor is expected to present the results in one of the lectures. The results are valuable for students as well as instructors and the TU Dresden. Each answered question is important! It is only possible to obtain scientifically and academically sound insights into the quality of the courses when a sufficient number of people participate in the survey.
A central goal of the course evaluation is the assessment and improvement of the quality of the courses. Students can help to improve the programs at the TU Dresden by providing criticism.