Which courses are evaluated?
All HSPH courses with an enrollment of three or more students are evaluated at the end of each term, with few exceptions (e.g. labs, independent study, and research sections are not evaluated).
How long does an evaluation take?
An evaluation takes, on average, less than five minutes to complete, but this could vary depending on the level of feedback you provide.
Are my answers confidential?
All responses are confidential. Your individual response is never viewed by anyone. Reports containing aggregated data and de-identified comments are distributed after the evaluation window is closed. You should not reveal personal or identifiable data in your evaluation.
Early Grade Access
Completing all available evaluations will provide you with early access to your grades in my.harvard before the official Registrar’s grade release date.
Can an instructor see evaluation data before submitting grades?
An instructor will never see evaluation data before they submit their grades or before the end of the evaluation window. Instructors may only access evaluation data after the evaluation window closes, which is after the grading deadline. Even if an instructor was late to submit their grades, a filter is applied in the course evaluation system so that evaluation reports for a course are never released to an instructor until they have submitted all grades for that course.
Who sees the course evaluation responses?
Instructors: Evaluation reports for each course are made available to instructors the day after the evaluation window closes, provided all grades are submitted. These reports contain information on the course as well as all instructors and all Teaching Fellows associated with the course. This information is aggregated and de-identified.
Department Chairs and Administrators: Evaluation reports for each department are made available to an assigned departmental administrator several days after instructors receive their reports. Administrators share these reports with the department chairs. These reports contain overview data on all courses within the department. At this time, the department administrator also gains access to the instructor reports for courses associated with their department.
Teaching Fellows: Evaluation reports for each course are made available to Teaching Fellows one week after instructors receive their reports. These reports contain information on the course and the individual Teaching Fellow receiving the report. Teaching Fellows do not receive information about other Teaching Fellows on their course. At this time, the department administrator also gains access to the Teaching Fellow reports for courses associated with their department.
Students: An abridged public-view version of the report for each course is made available to all Harvard stakeholders (accessible via HarvardKey) one week after the evaluation window closes. These reports contain some information about the course and the instructor, but no information about Teaching Fellows. These reports can be found on the Harvard QReports site.
How does the school act on this data?
Course evaluations are used in many ways:
- By course instructors to improve their courses and teaching: Instructors can meet with learning designers or faculty coaches to help interpret their feedback and make concrete improvements
- By departments and programs to assess and improve courses and curricula: reports are shared with department chairs, and senior leadership hold semi-annual meetings with department chairs to discuss course evaluation responses and other pertinent data
- By various committees to assess and improve teaching and learning effectiveness
- By teaching fellows to improve their teaching and classroom effectiveness and as part of their teaching portfolio when looking for jobs after graduation
- By your fellow students when selecting courses: Student-view reports are accessible at Harvard QReports site, and Chan Student Evaluations of Courses at Other Schools are available on our Course Evaluations page.
- By award committees for selecting the School’s annual teaching award winners
I have more questions
Please reach out to oed@hsph.harvard.edu and our Educational policy team will be happy to answer.