Learn more about teaching evaluation at the University of Ottawa and how you can improve your teaching methods to help your students succeed.

Benefits of course evaluations

Engage with your students.
When you encourage your students to complete their evaluations, you help the University offer top quality programs and courses.

See the impact of your teaching.
Feedback from students reflects your commitment to their learning.

Excel as a professor.
Directly measure how well you are teaching your students and learn how you can improve your teaching methods to help them succeed.

Teaching dossier

On June 10, 2019, the Senate approved the recommendation of the Senate Committee on Teaching and Teaching Evaluation to adopt the teaching dossier as a tool for the formal assessment of teaching.

A teaching dossier is an evolving “summary of an academic's major teaching accomplishments and strengths. It is to an academic's teaching what lists of publications, grants, and academic honours are to research.”
(CAUT The Teaching Dossier, PDF, 360KB, 2018, p. 2). 

A teaching dossier is:

  • A document that is prepared by the instructorunlike the traditional teaching evaluation questionnaires designed by committees, administrators or governmental agencies.
  • A tool used by the institution to evaluate a professor's overall teaching performance, but also a self-evaluation tool to help professors reflect regularly on their teaching and thereby constantly improve their instructional practices.
  • It is a selective document: professors choose the information and materials they want to include that best represent their performance and progress.

The teaching dossier include these three compulsory documents:

  • a statement of the professor’s teaching philosophy
  • the A-reports
  • a brief reflection on the results of these reports and the actions planned to enrich their teaching.

The Teaching and Learning Support Service (TLSS) provides training and resources to help faculty members write their teaching philosophy and build their teaching dossier. Resources for the evaluation of these dossiers are also available to the members of the Faculty committees and the Joint Committee of the Senate.

Personal report

On October 21, 2019, the Senate approved the recommendation of the Senate Committee on Teaching and Teaching Evaluation to adopt the personal report that brings together in a single report:

  • the P-report
  • student comments
  • the customized formative evaluation report (if applicable)

The minimum number of respondents required to produce the P-report has been reduced to one (1) and the X-report has been abolished. Thus, professors who teach small classes have the option of including the P-report in their teaching dossier.

As for the A-report and the Course Evaluation Report (formerly S-report), the minimum number of respondents remains at six (6).

Customized formative evaluation

The customized formative evaluation is an optional tool tailored to your individual needs that provides feedback on specific aspects of your courses. You can write up to ten questions of which two are agreement scale and three are open. You can use the bank of customized questions as inspiration for your formative assessment. You alone will see the answers to the questions you have added once the final marks are considered official.

You will receive an email inviting you to add customized questions about 10 days before the evaluation period.

Evaluation response rates

As a professor, you can see how many of your students have completed your evaluation at any given time. To do so, follow these instructions.

  1. You will receive an email inviting you to view your response rates on EvaluAction. Click on the link provided in the email or log in to VirtuO. Under the "Teaching" tab, click on the “Evaluation of teaching and courses (EvaluAction)” link.
  2. In the EvaluAction platform, you will have access to a list of all the courses you are teaching at the moment. Choose one of these courses to view the number of responses, the number of registered students and participation rate.

Reports

You will receive an email once the marks are official to view the results: A-Report and Personal Report. To learn how to consult your evaluation reports, follow the instructions (PDF, 1,128KB).

Frequently asked questions