SPOTS Survey
As of Spring 2013 the Student Perception of Teaching Survey (SPOTS) is the official ECU course evaluation survey intended to help instructors and their department chairs evaluate and improve instruction through the use of student feedback. SPOTS was approved by the Faculty Senate and the Chancellor as the replacement of the Student Opinion of Instruction Survey (SOIS) which was used at ECU for many years. The SOIS reports will be used for the Spring 2012-Fall 2012 evaluation cycle, and SPOTS will be used for that purpose starting Spring 2013. Note that the School of Medicine continues to use a different course evaluation instrument more suited for medical courses.
Both SPOTS and the SOIS were intended to serve as just one input into the evaluation of instruction. However, it is hoped that the format of SPOTS may be better suited to help achieve that goal by using simpler rating scales and by the lack of both "norms" and an overall rating of instruction. As such, SPOTS was designed so as to encourage chairs and instructors to focus more on the individual progress of each instructor than on comparisons with other instructors. SPOTS is to be used together with peer evaluations and other measures to evaluate instruction. As with the SOIS, students may make comments in SPOTS and they are provided only to the instructor.
The overall processes of administering SPOTS on OneStop and viewing SPOTS reports via ecuBIC remain largely the same as with the SOIS. Two weeks after Spring 2013 Commencement, SPOTS reports will be available online and will be accessed using a different link than is used for the SOIS. As with the SOIS, there are four versions of the SPOTS survey forms to accommodate the types of courses taught (see below).
More information beyond what is currently offered here will be added to this website regarding SPOTS.
