The IDEA Center is a not-for-profit organization that provides a wide range of innovative assessment products and services to institutions of higher education, enabling them to assess and improve teaching, learning, and administrator performance.

The IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction system assesses student learning in a way that is tailored to each instructor’s teaching objectives. Effectiveness is measured by progress students make on instructor-defined educational goals, as opposed to broad and often rigid or outdated standards.

In 2005, a Nashville State Faculty Senate Committee took on the challenge of proposing an improved Faculty Evaluation process. Looking at a new instrument for student evaluation of instruction was one key part of this charge. The Committee voted to implement a student evaluation pilot in 2005 - 06, as summarized below.

During Fall semester 2005, all full-time faculty were invited to use the IDEA survey, in lieu of the NSCC survey, in one or more of their courses. Deans selected some adjunct faculty members to pilot the IDEA survey. In fall 2005, NSCC piloted a small number of classes.

Faculty volunteers chose whether or not to include these pilot surveys in their performance evaluations and tenure/promotion applications. Non-tenured faculty did not use IDEA for all classes, but selected 1-2 classes.

Training about IDEA was provided during the fall semester of 2005. A consultant from IDEA came to campus early in 2006 to assist faculty volunteers to understand and use the diagnostics they received, and to provide additional training and information about the campus-wide adoption of IDEA effective fall 2006.

• IDEA is useful both for improving teaching effectiveness and for annual evaluations of faculty.
• Faculty select 3-5 key student outcome objectives for each course, which can be matched with outcomes on the course syllabus. The diagnostics focus on student ratings on these key outcomes.
• Faculty receive extensive diagnostic feedback for each course.
• Rating scores are adjusted for key variables that, based on research, influence student ratings and are beyond the control of the faculty member.
• Faculty can add additional questions to the survey and there is a space for student comments.
• IDEA provides comparisons of NSCC performance compared to a national sample of community colleges by discipline area.
• IDEA reports can be generated by program area that will be very useful for Academic Audits, Program Reviews, and all accreditation reports.

Faculty are encouraged to visit the IDEA website at www.idea.ksu.edu . The site provides extensive information about the survey instruments and reports, as well as information written for faculty to help them improve their teaching effectiveness. For further questions on IDEA, please contact Dr. Kimberly Estep, VP Academic Affairs, at {encode="kimberly.estep@nscc.edu" title="kimberly.estep@nscc.edu"}, or 615-353-3326.

All instruments provided by the IDEA Center are copyrighted. No part of the instruments may be used without the prior written consent from the Center. Any other use will be viewed as copyright infringement and a violation of academic integrity.