Fall 2023 Course Evaluations

January 25, 2024

To: Instructors in Yale College and the Graduate School of Arts and Science

Cc: FAS Steering, FAS Dean’s Office, GSAS Dean’s Office, SEAS Dean’s Office, Yale College Dean’s Office, President’s office, Provost’s office, Registrar’s office

[Summary: For Fall 2023 Course Evaluations, the mechanism that prevents students from viewing grades prior to submitting a course evaluation was out of operation for several weeks during December 2023 and January 2024. This was an error due to a technological failure and does not reflect a policy change. This message provides background on this incident, data on Fall 2023 evaluation response rates and average course ratings, and information on how any impact on faculty will be addressed.]

Dear colleagues,

As you may be aware, the mechanism that prevents Yale College and Graduate School students from viewing their grades prior to submitting a course evaluation failed during parts of December 2023 and January 2024. This was a technological error and is not indicative of a policy change. It has long been our practice to prevent students from accessing their final grades until they complete a course evaluation or opt out of evaluation; this policy remains in place.

Background

The grade suppression mechanism temporarily failed for Yale College courses from December 8 to January 3, and for Graduate School courses from December 14 to January 3, due to a technological malfunction. If students visited YaleHub during those timeframes, they could have viewed their course grade before submitting an evaluation. As soon as the University Registrar’s Office (URO) learned of this issue, they immediately began working with Yale ITS to resolve it. They are confident that this was a one-time issue that will not occur again. 

Impact on Fall 2023 evaluation response rates and course ratings

The information below is being shared with you in your role as a faculty member and should not be circulated more broadly.

The URO reports that 18,471 course evaluations were submitted during the time that students had access to their grades, and 4,690 course evaluations were submitted while grade suppression was functioning. Because course evaluations are anonymous, the URO cannot determine which or how many students viewed their grade before submitting a course evaluation.

In comparison to Fall 2022, overall Yale College response rates dropped 12% (from 67% to 55%), while Graduate School response rates increased by 5%. Response rates typically fluctuate somewhat from year to year and term to term; especially since 2020 they have been highly variable, so it is difficult to determine the extent to which these year-over-year changes are attributable to the malfunction. The overall average course ratings on our five-point scale for Fall 2023 are consistent with average course ratings from at least the past five years, but we do not at this point have a systematic assessment of the ways the narrative portions of the evaluations may have been affected.

Impact for faculty

Course evaluations are only one piece of information out of the many that make up a faculty member’s dossier, and each semester’s evaluations are only interpreted within a larger context. Nonetheless, we understand that you may be concerned about the impact of this incident on your course evaluations and how they will be considered in future reappointments or promotions. We also acknowledge that this error may have resulted in qualitative differences in student responses.

To help mitigate any impact this incident may have had on an individual course’s evaluations, all evaluations from Fall 2023 courses that are provided to committees will include a notice in the header  explaining that this incident occurred. We have taken similar steps to acknowledge extraordinary circumstances in the past: for instance, course evaluations from courses taught online during 2020 and 2021 include a note reminding readers that teaching was affected by COVID.

We are grateful to the Registrar and ITS for addressing this issue once they became aware of it. If you have questions or concerns about this matter, FAS faculty should contact fas.dean@yale.edu and SEAS faculty should contact seas.facultyaffairs@yale.edu.

Best wishes,

Jeff, Lynn, Tamar, and Pericles

Jeffrey Brock
Dean, School of Engineering & Applied Science

Lynn Cooley
Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Tamar Szabó Gendler
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Pericles Lewis
Dean, Yale College