As colleges and universities continue to expand virtual teaching and learning, the need for dependable, robust technology has become even more clear. The learning management system (LMS) has played a significant role in easing the transition to online learning, creating a place for students to complete coursework and engage with faculty.

Because students are spending more time in the LMS to complete their coursework, you can take advantage of LMS integrations to improve your course evaluation and survey participation rates. Rather than relying on in-person, paper-based evaluations or using a general survey tool to collect feedback, you can meet students where they are and quickly gather honest insights as they are engaging with course material. 

Make sure your systems are in sync

If your institution is implementing a new LMS, review your course evaluation process and confirm it aligns with the new tool. When Howest University of Applied Sciences adopted a new LMS, they quickly realized their outdated, university-developed survey and evaluation tool could work harder. The new system needed to handle feedback from a broad range of students – some were attending in-person classes across seven campuses in three cities, while others were completing courses online. It was essential to make evaluations and surveys easily accessible within their learning management system.

Expand your thinking

Rather than simply trying to match your existing process with your new technology, look for gaps and opportunities for improvement. “We already had digital surveys in place, but we were looking for more options and possibilities than our previous tool. Our new solution is very user-friendly for the students, there are different ways to communicate with them, and they can take the survey on their mobile phones as well,” said Sanne Tanghe, Quality Assurance at Howest. 

Identify key features

An integrated solution offers many benefits beyond making it easier for students to complete course evaluations and surveys:

• Empowered faculty. Instructors and faculty can strategically structure their evaluations and surveys to get the most valuable feedback for their courses. “Every person responsible for quality within a program can select which questions to ask from a predefined question bank, identify the course they want to evaluate, and determine when they want to launch the survey,” Tanghe said. This ability to make adjustments can pay off in improved response rates and more honest feedback from students.
• Multi-language support. If you need to collect feedback in multiple languages, let the technology do the heavy lifting. “We used to make one survey in Dutch and one in English, and have two different reports [that had to be manually combined]. Now we only have to make one survey, where students can choose their own language, and we have all the results in one report,” Tanghe said.
• Real-time reporting. Integration between the LMS and your course evaluation solution means instructors can immediately access course evaluation results and quickly begin adjusting course materials, programs, and content. It also makes it easier to share results with students to demonstrate your commitment to quality improvement.

Reap the benefits

By integrating their course evaluation and survey solution with their new LMS, Howest doubled survey participation rates. Pop-ups and reminders play a major role in getting students to complete course evaluations, and they’ve seen a significant improvement in engagement with distance learning students. “It’s a difficult group to reach because they aren’t on campus a lot,” Tanghe said. “We used to have a response rate of only 25% for general surveys, but [this term’s] survey is still running and we have already reached 63%.”

When implementing higher education software, it pays to think beyond the immediate use case for each tool and find a way for all of your systems to work together. Creating a seamless, efficient experience for students is the key to collecting meaningful, actionable feedback that can truly make a difference on your campus.