• At Monday's Academic Senate meeting, Greg Levy gave a presentation on the success and concerns with the Marquette Onion Course Evaluation System.
• Janet Krejci gave a report on the need and importance of interdisciplinary research.
• Provost John Pauly said that enrollment applications were up by 17 percent.

About 70 percent of students completed online course evaluations last semester — only a slightly lower response rate than the old pen-and-paper method, according to Gary Levy, associate vice provost for institutional research and assessment.

Levy presented a report on the Marquette Online Course Evaluation System during yesterday's Academic Senate meeting.

He said the number of courses evaluated was higher in number compared to the old in-class method.

While there might not have been a big difference in response rates between the new and old systems, Levy said the online method may have yielded a more valid response. Before, students could get bombarded with three paper evaluation forms per day, and responses would often be a straight line of filled-in bubbles down the middle, he said.

But the online form gave students 20 days to fill out each evaluation, not having to complete all of them at the same time.

One concern faculty and students had was that the online system would render more responses on the extremes — both positive and negative. Levy said there was a slight increase of responses on those two ends, but overall there was not a significant difference compared to the paper system.

Another concern was excessive e-mail reminders about filling out evaluations. Levy said once evaluations were done, no more e-mails were sent to individual students.

The data also found there was not a correlation between the day that a reminder e-mail was sent out and the response rate for that day.

Levy said online evaluations would be used again this semester. The best marketing for filling out the online evaluations is faculty, who could remind students, he said.

The evaluations help faculty improve courses, Levy said. Students, who remain anonymous, are not affected by filling out evaluations since faculty do not receive results until after final grades are turned in.

Provost report

Provost John Pauly reported that enrollment applications have increased by 17 percent — the same percentage increase as the year before.

Pauly requested that deans talk with department heads to encourage faculty to post course syllabi on D2L for all courses. Marquette Student Government originally called for the postings, and the Academic Senate had approved the policy, but enforcement has been ambiguous since its beginning.

Pauly said the dean searches for the Colleges of Arts & Sciences and Communication were going well. The final four candidates for the College of Communication have been interviewed. There are three candidates for the College of Arts & Sciences, but there is a chance for adding other candidates to the search, he said.

Research

A questionnaire was given to faculty last spring semester on what current interdisciplinary research was taking place and what was desired.

Janet Krejci, an associate professor in the College of Nursing, said such research is necessary. The inherent complexity of research, new technology, the fact that research cannot rely on one discipline alone and the societal problems influencing research lead to such research, she said.

"In order for interdisciplinary research to occur, there is a need of faculty initiative and a systematic structure for it," Krejci said.