Check-in survey

The Check-in survey (also known as a ‘Pulse’ or ‘Mid-Semester’ survey) is designed to allow course coordinators and/or teaching staff to survey their students during Teaching Weeks 5 to 6 of the semester.

Note: for Semester 2 2021, the Check-in survey deadlines have been extended. Please check the table below for up-to-date information.

The surveys consist of two standard scaled and two standard open-comment questions.

See an example Check-in survey (enter CHECKIN into the password bar).

Key dates

Action	Date
Orders for surveys open from Teaching Week 1. Only one course coordinator should place the order	Close on Sunday 15 August 2021
Course coordinators receive instructions for adding questions to their surveys. View example email invitation (PDF, 93.2 KB)	Monday 23 August 2021
Students are sent their survey invitations via email	Monday 30 August 2021 (Teaching Week 6)
Check-in surveys close	Sunday 12 September 2021 (end of Teaching Week 7)
Check-in survey reports sent to course coordinators and listed teaching staff	Week beginning Monday 13 September 2021

Types of questions

Course questions

Scaled

I have received helpful feedback on how I am going in the course. (Currently course question 6 in the SECaT)
So far, how would you rate this course? (Currently course question 8 in the SECaT)

Open-comment

So far, what are the best aspects of this course? (Currently course question 9 in the SECaT)
So far, what improvements would you suggest? (Currently course question 10 in the SECaT)

Teaching questions

Scaled

… inspired me to learn. (Currently teaching question 5 in the SECaT)
So far, how would you rate this teacher? (Currently teaching question 8 in the SECaT)

Open-comment

So far, what aspects of this teacher’s approach best helps your learning? (Currently teaching question 9 in the SECaT)
So far, what would you have liked this teacher to do differently? (Currently teaching question 10 in the SECaT)

Optional questions

Course Coordinators will also be able to write and add their own questions to the survey/s.

Each survey will allow Course Coordinators to add a maximum of 4 Scaled questions (S) and 2 Open-comment questions (OP) per survey. Including the standard questions, each survey can have a minimum of 4 questions and a maximum of 10 questions. If the teaching survey has been ordered, Course Coordinators will need to add questions for their teaching staff as well.

Once a survey has been ordered, Course Coordinators will be sent an email on the Monday of Teaching Week 4 with instructions and a link to the Optional Questions system. Optional scaled questions should be appropriately phrased to use the scales "Strongly Agree = 5, Agree = 4, Neutral = 3, Disagree = 2, Strongly Disagree = 1" for either the course and/or teaching surveys.

An example of the Optional Questions system is pictured below.

Predefined optional questions

For surveys with more than one teaching staff, Course Coordinators can tailor questions to suit each staff member listed. If the same optional teaching questions are to be used for all staff members, those questions will need to be copied and pasted for each staff member.

As these surveys will be automatically sent to students on the Monday of Teaching Week 5 and the optional questions are not audited by the Evaluation Unit, we recommend that Course Coordinators review their questions to ensure they are correct and free of typos. Otherwise the surveys will be sent to students with errors.

We also recommend that Course Coordinators save a copy of their optional questions as the Evaluation System will not store those questions for future use.

Instructions for adding optional questions (PDF, 302KB) View Optional Questions Bank for examples

How do I get a Check-in survey?

Inclusion of staff photos

Beginning Semester 1, 2017, all UQ course and teaching surveys may include photos of staff used as part of the survey instruments. A sample of the survey and photo can be viewed at example online SECaT (enter CHECKIN into the password bar).

Staff may opt out of including a photo or may substitute their photo with another photo. Staff with surveys scheduled will have active accounts at myevals.eval.uq.edu.au (UQ login required) so that photos can be removed or changed.

Photos will be enabled for updating on Monday 12 March 2019.

To remove photo

Log in using your UQ login at: https://myevals.eval.uq.edu.au
Click Manage Photos which appears in the left-hand navigation menu.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Clear Active. All photos in your list will have "No" listed under Active. No photo of you will be included in your surveys.

To change photo

Log in using your UQ login at: https://myevals.eval.uq.edu.au
Click Manage Photos which appears in the left-hand navigation menu.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Upload. A pop-up window appears.
Drag a photo file from your computer into the "Drop files here to upload" area then click Upload. Photos files should be less than 100KB in size. Large photos will take longer to upload and may appear like they have not uploaded when they are processing.

We recommend you use a desktop or laptop to action any photo removals or changes as mobile devices can display the interface incorrectly. The photo system is dynamically linked to your surveys and will be included as soon as edits are made and photos are processed within the systems.

When and how do I get my Check-in survey results?

Student confidentiality

The Check-in survey will be managed as a confidential survey which tracks students' completions.

The intent of this is to allow the University to review students' survey completion patterns, analyse the data collected, and report-on the potential effects of survey-fatigue.

Academic staff will not receive individually identifiable student information from the Check-in survey. The offensive language scan and aggregated student completion patterns will not be conducted nor reported to staff (unlike the SECaT process).