FAQ for Students

The new online Student Survey of Teaching Effectiveness (Blue) is scheduled to replace SUMMA in Spring 2015.

The benefits of moving to an online teaching effectiveness survey are several-fold. These include:

  1. Online response is more natural for today’s students.
  2. Opportunity for you to provide anonymous comments to faculty on each item.
  3. You may save your responses mid-completion and return to finish later.
  4. Survey is accessible on smartphones and tablets.
  5. Survey dynamically resizes to fit the pertinent device’s screen.

You will receive an email from the Office of the University Registrar with a link to your own set of courses to evaluate. Additionally, you may also access the online survey from within Banner Student Self-Service and Canvas.

Options to access your course survey:

  • Click on the link sent in the electronic invitation sent to your USF email address.
  • Log in to Banner Self-Service  (include name of tab – Teaching Effectiveness Survey).
  • Access the link in Canvas.

Course surveys give your instructors and the University more complete, accurate, and confidential information about the curriculum, and student engagement and learning, with the aim of improving teaching and curriculum design where needed. Your thoughtful and constructive feedback really will have an impact on the teaching and learning experience of present and future students. So, it is vitally important that all students complete their course surveys!

Yes. This online course survey has been designed so that no one’s identity can be tracked. Your name and other personal details will not be kept with your responses and you will not be identified in any way. This is a bedrock principle of the process. Your online surveys are confidential and anonymous. The new system is being hosted by eXplorance, a trusted University IT partner. 

If you have trouble logging-in to the system, contact the ITS Helpdesk at itshelp@usfca.edu or 415-422-6668.  All other questions should be directed to course.evaluations@usfca.edu.