Enhancements to the Online LISSA Evaluations
We have made improvements to the LISSA's Online Evaluation website (available at gslis.simmons.edu/evaluations): an extra column was added with a simple average for all the instructors teaching a course (surprisingly, it is called "Course average") and the averages for Question no. 9 have been tweaked to make them a little bit more descriptive (and hopefully, more useful).
Check them out, (ab)use them, let me know what you think!
More details:
The scores in the new "Course average" column are calculated fairly straightforward: adding up all the scores for a particular course and a particular question, and dividing them by the number of valid answers to that question.
Question number 9 was a little bit trickier: so far we have also made averages for the scores assigned to the answers: "0-3" means 5, "3-6" means 4, and so on. However, the results did not seem to be too helpful. So we have devised a "weighted average" for the answers to the questions 9a, 9b and 9c:
- For any checkmark put in the "0-3" column we assigned a score of "1.5".
- For any checkmark put in the "3-6" column we assigned a score of "4.5".
- For any checkmark put in the "6-9" column we assigned a score of "7.5".
- For any checkmark put in the "9-12" column we assigned a score of "10.5".
- For any checkmark put in the "12+" column we assigned a score of "13.5".
We have then multiplied the number of answers for a particular interval with the number assigned for that interval. After adding all the scores for all the intervals, the number obtained is divided by the number of valid scores.
I would like to point out that the scores for question 9 are supposed to give you an idea of the amount of required for a particular class; you should NOT take these numbers at face value - they are only relevant when compared with other sections.
Some disclaimers
The scores in LISSA's online tool are meant to be complementary (which means they have little relevance in and of themselves; you should also seek the counsel of your advisor, talk to your fellow students and check the comments on the paper evaluations - available outside of the GSLIS Lounge when choosing your classes/instructors).