Scope

All academic appointments on the Bloomington campus.

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Policy Statement

1. The OCQ (Online Course Questionnaire) can be one of many components used to do any of the following: evaluate teaching, evaluate courses, evaluate programs, and assess student learning. Departments and schools that use any OCQ questions in any of their evaluation or assessment systems will create statements that explain (A) how each such question relates to that system’s conceptions of effectiveness (of teaching, courses, programs, or learning), and (B) how much each such question counts within that system. Those statements must be approved by, and made available to, the faculty of that unit.
2. The OCQ will be administered in all courses, with the following exception: Academic units in which student evaluation procedures must meet national accreditation standards may use alternative evaluation forms with written approval of the VPFAA.
3. The OCQ will be administered during the last weeks of classes prior to the start of the final exam period. Instructors may request a change from that timing.
4. “Campus” questions are ones intended to be on the OCQ for every IUB course. There will be three categories of such questions:
   • “P&T” = multiple-choice questions (no more than four), responses to which students will not have access
   • “Student-access” = multiple-choice questions, responses to which students will have access
   • “Open-ended” = written-response questions, responses to which student will not have access
5. The OVPFAA and EPC will develop a standard format for reporting OCQ results. The standard report will include displays of statistical results for each P&T and student-access question for A) the course in question, and B) each of several relevant reference groups of courses (e.g., a group of courses of similar size and a group of courses at a similar level, in the same unit).
6. Suggestions to create, remove, or change campus OCQ questions may be brought to the EPC from faculty members, administrators, and students. The EPC will review such suggestions in consultation with the OVPFAA and other relevant bodies (e.g., the FAC, OVPUE, IUSA, and GPSO). The addition, removal, or modification of any campus questions must be approved by the BFC.
7. Departments and schools may add their own multiple-choice and open-ended questions to the OCQ. Departments and schools also may replace the campus open-ended questions with their own open-ended questions. Questions added or replaced by an academic unit must be approved by that unit’s faculty.
8. The instructor may add his/her own multiple-choice and open-ended questions to the OCQ.
9. The OVPFAA will gather and archive all OCQ results, and the OVPFAA will deliver them as follows:
   • Results for questions generated by the instructor will be delivered only to the instructor.
   • Results for campus, school, and department questions will be delivered to the instructor, to the unit’s head(s) of teaching, and to whomever else the unit’s faculty decides should receive them.
   • Results for student-access questions will also be posted on an appropriate password-protected website, accessible to the IUB community. That website will not include results for the first two semesters that an instructor has taught at IU.
10. Students’ responses will remain confidential. Results will be distributed only after grades have been submitted. For classes of fewer than five students, responses will be archived until at least five students have completed that course with that instructor. Coursework consisting of faculty-supervised independent study/research is not covered by this system and should be evaluated in a different manner.
11. The OVPFAA will develop and implement outreach efforts to maximize OCQ response rates.
12. Access to information concerning the OCQ, including to the questions themselves, should be restricted to the IUB community.

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Policy Summary

This document is intended to guide those involved in the administration and use of the Online Course Questionnaire, including school deans, department chairs, heads of teaching, the VPUE, and the VPFAA .

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Definitions

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History

This policy is based on and replaces the April 17, 2012 “Indiana University Bloomington Online Course Questionnaire Policy.”

Approved BFC: 04/17/2012; Amended 04/07/15, 10/07/2025

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