The possibility of conducting student class evaluations online was discussed at Wednesday’s University Council meeting.

The elimination of lost class time due to the need to fill out the survey by hand would be one of the positives of moving the survey online, said NIU Provost Ray Alden.

Online surveys would feature a similar scoring system featuring similar questions asked of all instructors, which could make grading instructors on a level field more efficient, Alden said.

“We just thought it was an opportunity to see a common set of questions that could be added to every student survey across campus,” he said. “Every department in the college could theoretically have different sets of questions, different scaling systems and different cultures as far as what a good score is on a given set of questions. We thought if we had a common set of questions that at least when we evaluated above the department level, we could start comparing peers.”

The College of Education already is experimenting with software, while other schools within the university are joining in, Alden said.

The matter will be discussed further at the Nov. 14 Academic Policies Committee meeting.