Administrator FAQ
- When do surveys run?
- How do I access response rates while surveys are running?
- When will reports be available?
- How do I access results after surveys are completed?
- Who can see what results?
- What do you do to keep student information confidential?
- What is the notification process for students and instructors?
- How many surveys will be administered?
- How/When will teaching assistants be surveyed?
- Why did you add the TAOS?
- Why did you update CIOS?
- Who can I contact about additional questions or suggestions?
1. When do surveys run?
For most courses, CIOS and TAOS will open beginning the Monday two weeks before finals and will run through midnight, Sunday after finals. For courses with non-standard schedules, CIOS and TAOS open during the last 1-3 weeks of the course, depending on course duration.
2. How do I access response rates while surveys are running?
You can access overall response rate information from within the SmartEvals site. Simply hover over "Reports" in the gold menu bar at the top of the page and select "Response Rates".
While both administrators and instructors may access response rates, neither will be able to access the names of individual respondents, nor which students did or did not respond to which question.
Similarly, while instructors may give rewards on a whole-class basis for reaching certain completion thresholds, they may not require proof of completion nor may the coerce students into taking the survey. More information regarding how instructors may incentivize the survey can be found on the Instructor FAQ page.
3. When will reports be available?
Administrators may access results for any given term at the same time as faculty. This is generally 5 days after grades are due to the registrar at the end of the term.
4. How do I access other results after surveys are completed?
All CIOS data for Summer 2011 and future semesters is available through SmartEvals. Instructions for producing several common report types can be found in the SmartEvals Reporting Manual for Administrators.
All CIOS data prior to Summer 2011 will remain archived in the old CIOS site, and you still have access to it using this link: https://webapps.gatech.edu/cfeis/cios_new/login.cfm. Here are some brief instructions:
1. Login with your GTaccount and password.
2. Click on Reports Menu
3. Click on Single Subject, Multiple Course/Instructor Survey Summary Report
4. Choose the term for which you want to see your CIOS results from the drop down menu: for example, fall 2010. Then click continue
5. Choose the subject code from the drop down menu and enter the range of course numbers for which you want to see results. The other drop down menu for "survey group schedule" should, in general, be left as-is. Then click "Run Report"
6. If you want to go to see the results for another course then click "GoToReportMenu" at the bottom of the page and repeat the procedure above. Or you could try a different type of report to see multiple courses at once but without the student comments. For example, the "Single Instructor, Multiple Term/Course Survey Summary Report" will give you all courses for a particular subject within a certain date range.
5. Who can see what results?
| Reporting access by role | CIOS Scaled Results | CIOS Comments | TA’s Scaled Results | TA’s Comments |
| Instructor | Their Own | Their Own | All within their own course | All within their own course |
| TA Supervisor | N/A | N/A | All within their own course | All within their own course |
| Teaching Assistant | None | None | Their Own | Their Own |
| School Chair | All within their own unit | None | All within their own unit | All within their own unit |
| Students | All – Summary only | None | None | None |
6. What do you do to keep student information confidential?
The CIOS and TAOS surveys are confidential. The Office of Academic Effectiveness takes student privacy seriously and does not see which responses come from which students. Who you are and how you responded are recorded in separate reports, and no instructor, administrator, or even Office of Academic Effectiveness staff members have access to a report that would identify who said what, as no such report exists.
All of the data required to record the information used for the CIOS and TAOS are stored by the vendor, SmartEvals, hosted by Gap Technologies,Inc; who administers the survey. SmartEvals also takes measures toward privacy protection:
"Your privacy is important to us. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
GAP's main datacenter, located in Cheektowaga, NY, is SSAE 16 SOC-2 Type II compliant. Our Texas colocation is SSAE 16 SOC-1 Type II compliant.
GAP's datacenter and security systems were developed with the help of a customer advisory board comprised of representatives from two universities and a CIO from private industry. The board developed a specific datacenter and security protocol based on ISO Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. The SmartEvals system has since successfully undergone in-depth security audits by two well-known universities, and an independent service auditor.
-Gap Technologies"
Obviously, another portion of the program needs to record the responses selected and the comments made in the survey, but this portion of the program does not need to know who gave these responses/comments. This information makes up our survey results tables, in which your answers and comments are recorded. Each answer or comment is associated with the class/instructor about which the answer or comment was made, but no student IDs are recorded.
7. What is the notification process for students and instructors?
Instructors will receive emails from cioshelp@gatech.edu regarding:
- Adding optional questions for their courses during a survey period
- When a survey period for one or more of their courses has begun
- Updates every few days displaying their response rates during the survey period
- When results are available
Students will receive automatic e-mails from SmartEvals containing a list of surveys to be completed on the day the survey opens, and every few days during the survey period until they have completed all of their surveys.
8. How many surveys are administered?
SmartEvals will list one survey per course within a survey period. Even if more than one instructor taught the course, students will see only one survey per course. For a course in which there are multiple instructors, students will be asked separate sets of questions about each instructor and each teaching assistant within the same survey. Response rates for that course are measured per course as a whole and not by instructor.
9. How/When will teaching assistants be surveyed?
Questions about Teaching Assistants appear after the questions about instructors on CIOS surveys. Course questions, instructor questions, and teaching assistant questions all appear on one survey.
More information regarding TAOS may be found on the TA FAQ page.
10. Why did you add the TAOS?
The TAOS exists for four main reasons:
1. To provide feedback to the departments and the Institute about Teaching Assistant effectiveness.
2. To provide TAs with feedback that, in addition to other forms of feedback and in conjunction with development efforts, can be used to improve future performance of TAs both in and out of the classroom.
3. To provide TAs with evidence of teaching effectiveness than can be used as part of their academic and non-academic job search process.
4. To assist the Institute in complying with the University System of Georgia Board of Regents Policy 8.3.5.2 EVALUATION OF PERSONNEL: Graduate Teaching/Laboratory Assistants which states that:
"institutions employing graduate teaching and/or laboratory assistants shall develop procedures to: conduct regular assessments, based on written procedures and including results of student and faculty evaluations, of each assistant's teaching effectiveness and performance."
More information regarding TAOS may be found on the TA FAQ page.
11. Why did you update CIOS?
We updated the CIOS in 2011 to increase the usefulness of feedback received by instructors, to deliver an improved user interface, to add flexibility in survey timing through multiple survey periods which more closely match course end dates, to improve reporting functionality, and to incorporate the TAOS.
For more information about CIOS changes, or to view the history of CIOS changes, a summary of the changes made, and task force reports regarding the CIOS update, please visit the CIOS History page.
12. Who can I contact about additional questions or problems?
Helpdesk, troubleshooting:
Email: cioshelp@gatech.edu
Phone: 404-385-1292