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Maintaining a Healthy System: Data Clean-up Tips

Most people spring clean; At Course Evaluations™ we like to tidy up data over the summer. Summer is the perfect time to review your data in Course Evaluations™ and change or correct any data issues. Below are some of the common topics that we see and are easily corrected:

Manager, Department, Course, Faculty, and Student Records

  • Review manager access and delete any un-used manager accounts.

  • Run database maintenance

    • Delete Orphan Records

    • Archive Transaction Log

    • Archive Deselected Participants

    • Remove Never-selected Evaluated Individuals from Rotation Surveys

      • Include Zero Submissions

      • Active Surveys, Closed

    • Deactivate Accounts

      • # of years since activity

    • Delete Unused Courses

      • Select Periods for Course Delete

    • Archive questions and response sets

      • Archives questions and response sets that have not been used for X number of years

    • Clean up the department list

      • Delete empty departments

      • Consolidate duplicates

      • Add/remove department chairs

      • Making sure that the surveys and the chair or faculty records are set up correctly to see data

Question Management

  • Review the questions in the database

    • CoursEval Support can export your question bank to Excel for you, upon request

    • Add any additional new questions

    • Archive old/un-used questions manually or use database maintenance

  • Review the response sets in the database

    • Archive old/un-used response sets manually, or use Database Maintenance

  • New functionality

    • Using specific questions by course number, course type(s), course designation(s), and/or department(s)

    • Department chair added questions

    • Faculty added questions

    • Move questions that may be in the main Question Manager that belong in Department or Course Questions

Surveys

  • Using templates to save time

  • Consolidating to one survey using custom dates and custom questions

  • Using the automated survey open, close, and results release to faculty

  • New functionality

    • Custom survey start and end dates based on the course start and end dates (relative to the date imported with the course), custom survey start and end dates based on the course survey availability import, or faculty added start and end dates

Group Email

  • Review the group email templates

  • Review and update the content of the messages

  • Delete any old or unused group e-mail templates

  • New functionality

    • Automated emails allow users to set up a generic announcement/reminder email that will be sent to participants with open surveys at a set interval

Survey Site Setup

  • Review the messages and settings

Reports

  • Review the designs and layout settings

    • Design a few custom Evaluation Report layouts based on your needs

  • Discuss the best practices and use of the Survey Intelligence report with Course Evaluations Support

  • New functionality

    • Survey report availability import to allow the release of results to a faculty or course

Authentication

  • If your school is currently using Internal Authentication (usernames and passwords authenticated via Course Evaluations™) contact Course Evaluations Support for a follow up conversation on using External Authentication (Single-Sign-On (SSO) via the school network)

Integration

  • D2L™, BlackBoard®, Canvas™, Moodle, Sakai®, or any portal contact Course Evaluations Support for a follow up conversation

Review Your Internal Documentation

  • Review your process documentation for accuracy

  • Update any new feature processes

  • Update any outward facing documentation to faculty and students

  • Create simple videos for frequently asked questions

  • Create FAQ's that you can share with your users

  • Contact Course Evaluations Support if you would like help or need proofreading for accuracy