Strategic and Governance Services

There are two alternative ways of administering the UTEI surveys to students:

• Online Central; or
• Online by School.

Online Central

This is the default mechanism for Semester 1, Semester 2 and Summer School.  This online approach covers the vast majority of ECU’s unit offerings. For unit offerings that are flagged as Online Central, Survey Services manages the campaign. This includes organising UTEI promotion (posters, news items, facebook), sending out invitation emails to the students enrolled in the unit, and sending follow-up/reminder emails to non-responders.

Online by School (via student portal)

This is the alternative online approach when Online Central is not suitable due to either inappropriate timing or the service is not being offered. For unit offerings that are using the Online by School approach, it is the responsibility of the school to manage the campaign.

Online by School requires start and end dates to be set in Course Unit Offering System (CUOS) along with the usual details regarding teachers and questionnaire types. These dates trigger the opening and closing of the UTEI survey accessed by students in the Student Portal.

In order for Online by School to work, schools must ensure students are directed to the portal. Typically, this requires an email going to all students in the unit(s) involved, along with several follow-ups. See Downloads for two suggested templates:

• Email Invitation
• Email Reminder/Thank you

An alternative/complimentary approach is to have students spend 10-15 minutes of class time completing these UTEIs in a computer lab at the end of the unit.

We request that schools contact the surveys team if they intend to use the Online by School approach: Dede Manuel (Ext 2076), Hamed Salih (Ext 2049) or Jo Walsh (Ext 2817).

Please note that even for units with classes that finish some weeks prior to the main Summer, Semester 1 or Semester 2 UTEI campaigns, the Online Central approach can still generate better response numbers because the administration is part of a dedicated broad campaign involving followup emails and promotional publicity.

ECU is committed to providing a high quality learning experience for students. The UTEI is intended to assist staff in identifying the strengths and areas of possible improvement in their units and their teaching.  As a standardised tool, it also supports broader strategic monitoring of student perceptions of units and teaching over time, within the course, school and university context.

The Unit and Teaching Evaluation Instrument (UTEI) is a three-part questionnaire, (i.e. no choice of items) that provides for evaluation of the unit, followed by evaluation of each relevant teacher in that unit. Teachers are evaluated as a lecturer, a tutor, or both.

For more information please see the UTEI Question Items document in our download section.

The UTEI unit items, lecturer items and tutor items each comprise a set of positively worded core items that use the standard five-point Likert agreement scale:

• NA - not applicable
• SD - strongly disagree
• D - disagree
• N - neither agree nor disagree
• A - agree
• SA - strongly agree

In addition, students are asked two open-ended questions inviting written feedback on the ‘best aspects’ and those that might ‘need improvement’.

It is University UTEI policy that the UTEI be administered across the entire unit each time the unit is conducted. Thus the UTEI is to be administered in each teaching period, evaluating each unit and each staff member teaching it, irrespective of when the unit is offered, how the unit is taught or where the unit is taught. Policy also specifies that the purpose of student evaluations of units and teaching is to review the effectiveness of the environment for teaching and learning in the University.

The UTEI data is used in different ways by ECU staff at different levels of responsibility. Individual academic staff need to use UTEI data:

• as part of critical reflection on their practice, to identify strengths and areas of possible improvement in their units and teaching;
• to inform discussions with their line manager as part of performance review processes; and
• as part of probation, contract renewal and promotion procedures.

Unit and Course Coordinators, Associate Deans, and Executive Deans need to monitor and evaluate student perceptions of the quality of teaching and learning within their respective areas of responsibility.  A variety of ‘management reports’ are available within the UTEI reports (Dissemination) portal, and via the Business Intelligence tools managed by the EAPI (Enterprise Analytics and Performance Improvement) team. UTEI results are also made available via the ECUonQ review tool.

UTEI data is often used in major course reviews, or accreditation-type processes, with professional bodies, TEQSA, etc.

UTEI results guide/interpretation

Please see the downloadable UTEI Results Guide for more information on:

• Accessing results
• Who can see what?
• Presentation of results
• Score metrics
• What is a good result?
• Comparing results
• Response rates
• Student comments