Course Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS

Institute policy requires that all students enrolled in Tech courses be surveyed each term, provided the course has at least seven registered students and is not an independent research or similar type of course (e.g., visiting lectures, unsupervised laboratory, etc.). To satisfy this policy, a webbased questionnaire is administered once each term to collect students' assessments of their classes and instructors. This questionnaire is known as the Course Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS). CIOS was created in 1986 for two primary purposes: to allow students to give anonymous feedback about the quality of instruction at Tech and to satisfy accountability requirements from the Board of Regents. The original paper-based system was eventually moved online in 1999. It was then shortened in 2001 and used until 2011 when it was redesigned and moved to an external vendor (Digital Measures). In summer 2014, CIOS was moved to a new vendor (GAP Technologies) whose SmartEvals product provided significant advancement in reporting capabilities, mobile survey access, and survey administration. In 2017, a task force was established to examine the use of CIOS as a measure of teaching effectiveness, and the campus continues to examine ways to leverage multiple measures of teaching effectiveness.

CIOS is administered by the Office of Academic Effectiveness.

Survey Questions

The survey is divided into three sections: student effort, quality of course, and quality of teaching. Students can type in openended comments at the end of each survey section and overall comments at the end of the survey. Additionally, instructors may choose up to three extra questions to include in the survey from an available database of curated questions.

Survey Periods

For most courses, CIOS will open the Monday two weeks prior to finals and will run through midnight the Sunday after finals. For courses with nonstandard schedules, CIOS will open during the last one to three weeks of the course, depending on course duration. Students receive automatic emails when the survey opens, and every three to four days during the survey period, until the survey closes.

Individual student responses are strictly anonymous. It is against policy for instructors to ask for individual confirmation that students have completed a survey. However, instructors can monitor overall class response rates during the survey period.

Survey Access

All users access the course survey through gatech.smartevals. com. When instructors access the course survey they can choose optional questions, ensure that their course is set to be surveyed, check on participation rates during survey periods, and download results after the survey period has concluded. When administrators access the survey, they can download results for scaled responses for courses within academic units they oversee. When students access the course survey, they can complete their surveys.

Survey Results

Approximately one week after grades are due, survey results are released to instructors via gatech.smartevals.com. At this time, the results are also available to relevant administrators. Numerical results from scaled responses are provided to instructors and are also available to administrators. Openended responses are only available to instructors. Each summer the Office of Academic Effectiveness computes normative data about the responses to the survey during the previous academic year. The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) provides consultation services to any instructor or faculty member who would like assistance interpreting their CIOS results or using their CIOS results to improve their teaching. Additional resources for interpreting CIOS results are found in the “Resources" section of this guidebook.

Sources

Office of Academic Effectiveness academiceffectiveness.gatech.edu/resources/cios/ Normative Data Reports academiceffectiveness.gatech.edu/resources/cios/ norm_data/ Survey and Reporting Access gatech.smartevals.com Center for Teaching and Learning Suite 457, Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons | ctl.gatech.edu/faculty/course-survey