Changes in Reporting Formats beginning June 26, 2018
Frequently Asked Questions
The Ad Hoc Committee on the Evaluation of Teaching has recommended changes to CIF reports which will be implemented during Summer 2018. On June 26, 2018 the current reporting system will be replaced by new reports. After that date, the old reports will no longer be available.
How can I save a copy of my CIF reports in the current format?
Instructions to save your reports are available on the CIF website .
What will happen to CIF analyses for the period Fall 2008 through Spring 2018?
The new reporting system will apply changes retroactively. Beginning on June 27, you will see the full history of your CIF results in the new formats. Some information in the old reports will no longer be displayed (see below). All CIF analyses will be retained in an archive accessible only to the Office of Strategic Planning and Institutional Research.
What is in the current reports that will not be in the new?
The following items are being removed from the questionnaire and from reports:
- Average Self-reported Attendance (Question 13)
- Overall Effectiveness of Teaching (Question 11)
The following statistics will no longer appear in reports:
- Item means for Questions 1 through 10
- Item mean for Degree of Intellectual Challenge (Question 12)
- Item means for Learning Goals
- Component scores
- The mean of the Overall Composite Score (it will be replaced by the median)
- Decile rankings
- Color shading for top and bottom 20% on the Instructor History Overview report
- Confidence intervals
- Most comparison means (department, division, university, etc.)
The comparison group “division-level-credit hours” (courses in the same college/division at the same level with the same number of credit hours) will be used to provide context for responses to the Time Outside Class item and to a new item that will ask students to rate the quality of their effort in the class.
Will the new reports be printable?
The new Class Summary report and Instructor History report will be readily printable in an 8.5x11 format. Other reports in the suite (e.g., Composite History and Additional Questions) will be printable but will require more formatting. For those other reports, it is recommended that the table contents be exported to Excel, formatted in that program, and printed as Excel documents.
Which reporting format will be used in the packets presented for re-appointment, tenure and promotion cases?
Cases being reviewed for re-appointment, tenure and promotion will be based on information in the new reports beginning with the 2018-2019 academic year.
Will student comments from previous semesters be visible to department chairs and deans?
No. Department chairs and deans can see students comments for the instructors in their departments and colleges beginning with Summer 2018 reporting. Until that time, students completing their CIFs had been told that the comments would be visible to their instructors only, and that pledge must be honored. Instructors continue to have the option of manually sharing student comments from previous semesters with anyone they choose.
How will Class Search Responses be displayed in the new reports?
Class Search Responses will remain unchanged in content and reporting format.
How will Instructor Grade History be displayed in the new reports?
Instructor Grade History will continue to be part of the CIF reporting suite and, as is the current practice, will not be included in reports for re-appointment, tenure and promotion.
Why are CIF reports being changed?
Details regarding the rationale for the changes are provided in the Committee’s report. In short, the changes seek to accomplish the following:
- Focus attention on the full picture of student feedback rather than on a small and mostly comparison-based set of data points.
- Incorporate graphic as well as tabular presentation of the results.
- Respect the ordinal nature of most of the data collected through CIFs.
- Provide more options for sorting and filtering results.