The idea is that we need to provide incentives. Last semester, all we offered was a suggestion to instructors to offer a reward (of their choice) if their class reached a certain participation percentage. For example, a KLS class was told they would have a "play" day instead of a serious work day if they reached 80% participation.
I think we should try offering individual-based incentives. Some examples:
- Students must complete at least one evaluation before they are permitted to use the campus wireless connection for the day.
- Blank out or delay grades for classes that they didn't do an evaluation for.
- Allow students who completed all their evaluations to register one day earlier for the next semester than they would have otherwise.
- Enter contest to win something (an ipod?)
- Allow instructors to see who completed a survey so they can offer bonus points. Maybe we can add a setting where the students can say they're willing to let the instructor see that they did a survey (although it wouldn't be associated with the results)?
The problem that all these ideas share is that the students may feel threatened, that they may believe that if we know they did a survey, then we know *which* survey they did, and the instructor can find out. Is there a department on campus that might be interested in doing focus groups/research as a class project?
While this is a valid concern, the experiences of other Universities strongly suggests that higher response rates will not happen without some or all of these measures in place. The main objection to the system is the low response rates (~33%), we have to try every option to increase this number.
If none of these are considered viable, then other ideas are:
- Instructors promise to publish if the response rate reaches a certain percentage
- Announce the system on the campus portal/main page
I hope to add to these lists if anyone comes up with other ideas.
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