Preparing for IDEA

The IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction surveys are administered towards the end of each course. Before the surveys open to students, instructors are sent an email with instructions and the link to log in to their faculty portal. Faculty will log into https://biola.campuslabs.com/faculty/ with their Net ID and password to complete the following tasks:

• Review course enrollment
• Complete the Objectives Selection Form
• Add custom questions if desired

You can view the course enrollment by logging into Campus Labs, selecting the proper term, and clicking “View Course Roster” in the upper right corner for the course you want to see. If you notice a student that is no longer enrolled in your course, please email course.evaluations@biola.edu with the course number and section or CRN and the name of the student who needs to be removed. Note: only students that have officially withdrawn from the course through the Registrar’s office can be removed.

About Learning Objectives

The Diagnostic Feedback and Learning Essentials instruments are designed around 13 learning objectives that encompass all objectives you would have in a course. These learning objectives are broader objectives that precede your more specific learning outcomes but are subsequent to your major course goals.

IDEA surveys double-weight Essential items and single-weight Important items while those of minor or no importance are not used in calculating the ratings. This enables you to focus the survey on those learning objectives that are vital in your individual course.

You can learn more about each individual learning objective here.

Choosing Learning Objectives

Here are instructions for completing the Objectives Selection Form. As a general rule, limit your selection to between 3-5 objectives by prioritizing those objectives that are Important or Essential in the course. Although all the learning objectives may be addressed to some extent in your course, it is unrealistic to expect that students could make significant progress on all or even most of them in one course.

While you want to identify those 3 to 5 that are most important, be true to your course. If you are teaching a course where you are targeting only one objective (such as a lab experience), then it would be appropriate to select only one learning objective. On the other hand, if you are teaching a capstone class in your major, and you have targeted many learning objectives, it would be appropriate for you to select more than five.

Selection is more obvious in some courses than others. To help, you can create a chart that aligns goals, IDEA learning objectives, and your learning outcomes. Ask these questions:

1. Is it a significant part of the course?
2. Do you do something specific to help students accomplish the objective?
3. Does the student’s progress on the objective influence his or her grade?

Instructors can add custom questions to individual course surveys which appear at the very end of the evaluation. Here are instructions for adding these questions. We ask that you please keep in mind the length of the survey when adding additional questions to avoid survey fatigue.

In the End-of-Year IDEA Eval Process, Dr. Arianna Molloy provides a helpful map to administer the IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction. This process helps to "set the scene" and provide context for students as they prepare to evaluate the class, and allows closure to their learning in the course.