Course Evaluations System Replacement Project

Student evaluations serve as a central quality assurance mechanism and an essential channel for the student voice. This upgrade strengthens UQ’s commitment to delivering a high-quality learning experience, enhancing the student voice, and ensuring compliance with industry standards—ultimately driving continuous improvement.

The new platform offers several key benefits:

User Experience: Features a modern interface with an improved dashboard for easier navigation and enhanced search functionality.

Reliability: Offers better support and a more reliable system performance during peak evaluation periods.

Response Rate Monitoring: Enables real-time monitoring of response rates for Course Contributors and School/Faculty Executives.

Improved Data Quality: Mitigates data quality issues, leading to more accurate and reliable insights.

Improved Ease of Access: Each course now has a single survey link for students. Teaching staff have access to Subject Management, where they can view survey details, including response rates and QR codes. Reports list where they can access their semester survey results reports.

Streamlined Administration: Reduces administrative workload through simplified survey management, data preparation, and reporting.

Survey Questions: The current SECaT and SETutor survey questions remain unchanged.

Data entry in Jac or Syllabus Plus: Course-owning units continue to use Jac (and optionally Syllabus Plus) to enter and maintain course and teaching staff data (Course Coordinators, Lecturers, Tutors). This data will automatically feed into the new evaluation platform.

Evaluation Schedules: Standard evaluation schedules remain the same. For evaluations outside these schedules, schools can contact the Student Surveys and Evaluation Team (SSET).

Unified Survey Access: Students will now access both SECaT and SETutor surveys for a course via a single survey link or QR code, reducing confusion and improving engagement.

Reduced Manual Work for Course-Owning Units

The new platform removes the following manual steps, making the process easier for course-owning units:

• SECaT Verification: Don’t need to manually verify for SECaT surveys before they are created.
• SETutor Opt-in: Don’t need to manually opt-in for SETutor surveys.
• SETutor Survey Link: Don’t need to manually distribute SETutor survey links.

To facilitate a smooth transition, existing processes will remain unchanged wherever possible while leveraging the new platform’s benefits. This approach will enhance staff user experience and minimise disruptions.

Course-owning units should continue using Jac (or Syllabus Plus, as per their preference) to enter and maintain accurate course and teaching staff data. All Course Coordinator, Lecturer, and Tutor details that are accurately maintained will automatically integrate with the new evaluation platform.

Please note that only staff designated as Course Coordinators, Lecturers, or Tutors will be included in evaluations. For further details, please refer to the Evaluation Data Preparation Guide (PDF, 78 KB).

ADAs have appointed Faculty-based representatives as Change Champions to engage with course-owning units throughout the project. Please contact the Change Champion for your faculty if you have any questions.

The project team encourages you to actively engage in the upcoming stakeholder engagement sessions. Your insights will be invaluable in enhancing the University’s course evaluation platform.

Session details will be shared through ITaLI’s Teaching and eLearning newsletters throughout the semester.

Frequently asked questions for evaluation data preparation 

Q1. When should course and staff data be prepared? 

Course-owning units in schools and faculties must ensure that all course and staff data in Jac (or Syllabus Plus) is accurate by Census Date each semester. This ensures that surveys are correctly generated in the course evaluation platform. For more details, refer to the Evaluation data preparation guide. 

Q2.  Can a course be evaluated if its Course Profile is unpublished or retired? 

No. The Course Profile must be published in Jac using the Publish tile. If a Course Profile is unpublished or retired, surveys will not be generated for the course, even if it meets the minimum enrolment threshold (5 or more students). 

Q3. How do I ensure staff entered in Jac are evaluated? 

1. Staff must: 
   • Have a valid UQ User ID. 
   • Be assigned one of the following roles in the Course Contributor section of Jac: 
     • Course Coordinator 
     • Lecturer 
     • Tutor 
2. If the Course Coordinator also lectures in the same course, they must be assigned both roles. Staff assigned to other roles will not be evaluated. 

Q4. What if a staff member's UQ User ID or Role Title is missing in Course Profile (Jac) or Syllabus Plus? 

Staff members will not be included in course evaluations if they:

• do not have a valid UQ User ID, and/or 
• are not assigned a Course Coordinator, Lecturer, or Tutor role in Jac.

Q5. How should teaching roles be assigned or amended correctly in Jac? 

Staff must be assigned the correct role using the dropdown menu in the Course Contributor section of Jac.  

Surveys will not be generated for staff listed under "Other Roles" or that are added manually. 

Q6.  Will I receive SETutor evaluation if my School allocates tutors in Syllabus Plus? 

Yes. If your school assigns tutors at the tutorial activity level (TUT) in Syllabus Plus (S+), they will be automatically linked to the course in the evaluation platform. Continue managing tutor details in S+ as usual. 

Q7. Can a staff member receive both SECaT and SETutor evaluations for the same course? 

No. To avoid survey fatigue, staff receiving a SECaT evaluation (Course Coordinators and Lecturers) for a course will not receive a SETutor evaluation for the same course. 

If a staff member is assigned as both a Tutor and a Lecturer/Course Coordinator in a course, the SETutor survey will be automatically removed. 

Q8. Can the new system evaluate courses that are not delivered in a standard 13-week semester?  

Yes, the new system can evaluate courses delivered in non-standard teaching periods. 

However, to ensure a smooth system implementation, no surveys will be administered before 19 May 2025. 

If you plan to open a survey after 19 May 2025, please contact the Student Surveys and Evaluations Team at evaluations@uq.edu.au for further information.  

Q9. When and how will staff receive course evaluation reports? 

If a survey receives five or more responses, the evaluation report will be emailed to staff on the Monday following final grade release. In Semester 1, 2025, this will be Monday 7 July 2025. 

The email will contain a link to the Feedback Report page, where staff can: 

• View results in HTML format. 
• Download a PDF version of the report.  

Staff can also log in to Reportal from 7 July 2025 to access evaluation results through various reports. 

Q10. How can I stay updated on the project, seek support, or raise questions? 

View the lastest updates and other project details in the other sections of this page.

Faculty-based Change Champions have been appointed to support course-owning units.

1. Please contact your faculty’s Change Champion for assistance.
2. You can find their names and contact details on this page.

Q11. Can a course be evaluated if it has fewer than 5 students enrolled? 

No. A minimum of five enrolled students is required for a survey to be generated. If your course has fewer than five students enrolled, we recommend using one of the informal feedback tools to collect feedback from your students. Review the Informal student feedback page for further information and guidelines.

Q12. Can staff requests their course to be exempted from evaluations? 

Courses to be exempted are currently managed by the Change Champions, and exemptions must be approved by Associate Dean (Academic). Please contact Student Surveys and Evaluations Team at evaluations@uq.edu.au for guidance.

Included below are brief demos of the new course evaluation system, one tailored for staff and the other for students. Each of the recordings has been prepared for the purpose of supporting each user group through User Acceptance Testing. Pending feedback from User Acceptance Testing, items contained in the recording may be subject to change. Prior to system go-live, updated demos will be available based on the final version of the course evaluation system. 

Demo: Staff's Perspective

Demo: Student's Perspective