Faculty and Staff Course Evaluations FAQs

Departments will now send their own evaluations on their own schedules through CES. Each department can have one Project Administrator, responsible for sending departmental evaluations on behalf of their department. Training and support are provided. Let us know if you need to replace a Project Administrator or request a new account.

Sending course evaluations through CES eases administrative workflow while considerably reducing paper waste. Furthermore, department Project Administrators, chairs, and faculty have direct access to course evaluation reports from nearly any device with internet access. 

Question types include multiple choice, Likert scale, and short answer, and can include branching. Departments are responsible for setting the questions on their questionnaires.

Departmental Course Evaluations are sent by each department. Instructors using Canvas Academic Courses can have their evaluations delivered via Canvas to their students. When evaluations are delivered via Canvas, students will see a pop up when they click into a class, and they’ll see a widget on the Canvas Dashboard with a list of all available course evaluations sent through Canvas.  

Yes. The IT Assistance Center sends SPI Evaluations and collects and transfers Student Perception of Instruction (SPI) data to the HB2504 website. There is no need to request HB2504 SPIs. 

As of Spring 2021, ePortfolio is no longer used to send SPI or departmental course evaluations. Faculty and Department course evaluation administrators will still be able to access reports from previous semesters in ePortfolio. If you’re a new administrator and need access to this older data, please email eportfolio@txstate.edu with your request. 

ePortfolio  will still continue to be used for other types of assessments. 

CES is a system exclusively designed for sending course evaluations electronically to students. At Texas State, CES will be used for Student Perception of Instruction (SPI) state mandated evaluations as well as departmental course evaluations. 

These online course evaluations are an electronic version of the paper evaluation questionnaires that departments have used in the past. 

No, student responses are always anonymous, and instructors cannot view a list of students who have responded, nor see names associated with responses. Further, faculty will not be given access to their evaluation results until after grades have been submitted to the registrar.  

No. Per PPS 02.03.01, evaluations are anonymous. Giving extra points or other incentives would violate the anonymity requirement of course evaluations, as the students would have to be identified as having completed the evaluation. 

CES is used solely for evaluating academic courses. It is not available for sending general surveys.  

Qualtrics and Microsoft Forms can be used for other campus survey needs such as conducting research, receiving feedback from a professional development training, or otherwise collecting data. 

Course evaluation notification emails will be sent from notifications@watermarkinsights.com.

Course evaluations can be sent through Canvas or as emails to students. 

When delivered through Canvas, a pop-up message displays on the student's screen when they click into a class. This pop up contains a message and buttons to complete the evaluation or do it later. A widget will also appear on the student’s Dashboard, in the bottom right corner, with a list of all available evaluations.  

Departments may also opt to send an email directly from the CES system containing a link to the evaluation or directions on how to access the evaluation from Canvas.  

You cannot edit an evaluation once it has been submitted. However, ITAC can reset your evaluation for you. In doing so, you may need to start over with the evaluation. Be sure to note rating scales, as they vary by department. Submit a request if you would like your evaluation to be reset.

Yes, students will be able view all their open course evaluations once they’ve clicked any link to access the system, either from Canvas or from an email. 

Robust reporting is at your fingertips! Faculty, chairs, Project Administrators, and designated Report Administrators in your department have access to reports. This gives departments the flexibility run reports in a variety of ways for a variety of reasons.  

Results from SPI evaluations will still be posted to the HB2504 site, per state law.  

Reports from ePortfolio from Spring 2014 through Fall 2020 will be available to faculty in ePortfolio, if they were originally sent through ePortfolio.  

CES reports contain similar information as ePortfolio reports; however, the format of the reports is different.  

Status reports will be available in real time, and results reports will be available after grades are submitted to the registrar.

Yes! There are several standard report types, as well as the Report Builder which allows you to customize your report output, including creating aggregate scores and more!  

Course evaluation reports can be viewed by chairs, faculty, and CES Project and Report Administrators. 

Learn more about how to access reports. 

Reports are available beginning the day grades post to transcripts and will remain available thereafter. Older reports will remain available in ePortfolio, as well. 

Not yet, but we are working with the vendor toward the possibility of transferring this data automatically.