Course Evaluation Guidance for Students

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find course evaluations?

There are three paths to get to your course evaluations:

1. You will receive emails when course evaluations open and periodic reminder emails throughout the evaluation period. These emails contain links that take you directly to each evaluation, where you can log in using your UCM student credentials.
2. Each course in Blackboard has a link in the course navigation menu called Course Evaluations. This link will take you directly to course evaluations for that course. It will also log you in to the evaluation platform automatically using your Blackboard account.
3. You can go directly to Academic Analytics (https://academic-analytics.ucmo.edu) and click the Student Dashboard link to view your student dashboard. On this dashboard, you will find links to all your course evaluations.

Why isn't there a Course Evaluation link for a course in Blackboard?

Sometimes the links get deleted by accident, or Blackboard fails to create the  link in the first place. Report this to your instructor, and they can easily re-add the link.

How are evaluations kept anonymous?

Before the course has officially ended, the only thing instructors can see related to course evaluations is the number of students in the course who have submitted one. They cannot tell which students submitted evaluations.

While evaluations are open, several administrators can view your course evaluation submission: the course's school chair, the course's dean, and individuals in the Provost's office.

After the course ends, all student names are permanently removed from all course evaluation submissions. This action is irreversible. Even the administrators listed above can no longer tell who submitted any given evaluation. At this point, instructors can view responses. All responses for each question are grouped together. Instructors cannot tell which responses were submitted by the same person across different questions.

How do confirmation codes work?

When you submit a course evaluation, the system generates a random confirmation code. Then it uses a one-way SHA-512 hashing algorithm to build and save a random blob of text based on your 700#, the course, and the instructor's 700#.

Instructors have access to a submission verification tool. They can enter the student's 700#, their own 700#, the course information, and the confirmation code. The system recreates the SHA-512 hash using the information the instructor provided.

If it matches an entry in the system, that indicates to the instructor that the student did submit an evaluation. The confirmation code is not connected to any individual questions on the course evaluation. The instructor will not know which responses are yours.

If you do not share a confirmation number with the instructor, they will not be able to tell whether you submitted an evaluation or not.

Why do evaluations take place before the course ends?

Finals week is a stressful time for students. UCM has traditionally conducted course evaluations prior to finals week so that the stress of that time period is not the most recent thing on students' minds when they sit down to evaluate an instructor.