Department Coordinators FAQ

1. How do I access what I need for CIOS setup?

After you receive the instructions for CIOS setup each semester, you may need to update settings for individual courses. While CIOS is now administered through a new system via SmartEvals, the specific activities that department coordinators need to complete are still managed through the old CIOS site. You may access the old CIOS site at https://webapps.gatech.edu/cfeis/cios_new/login.cfm. You will then need to go to "Maintain Courses to Survey ..." on the main menu.

If you also have reporting access, to login to SmartEvals use your GT account and password (same as for GT email, T-square, etc.)

2. What is my role within CIOS?

First and foremost, you enter the data that CIOS pulls in order to create the surveys. CIOS gets its lists of courses and instructors from Banner. So, once you or your department enter courses in Banner, they will be entered in CIOS when the Office of Academic Effectiveness downloads them from Banner. Each term, the Office of Academic Effectiveness downloads the information from Banner on the Monday following the last day students can register and make schedule changes. Because CIOS gets all of its data from Banner, for instructors to have their students surveyed they must be listed in Banner as the instructor for their course. Communicating with instructors to ensure they are listed properly is one of your most important roles with CIOS; the more accurately your department maintains information in Banner, the smoother survey creation is.

Next, you can update the list of classes that your department wants to be surveyed, and view other information about the surveys depending upon your access rights, at https://webapps.gatech.edu/cfeis/cios_new/login.cfm.

You are also the liaison between the Office of Academic Effectiveness and your department; please help us by communicating to your faculty how very important it is that they get their students to fill out the on-line survey! We would be happy to hear any feedback you get from anyone in your department.

Additionally, oftentimes Chairs and Deans ask department coordinators to retrieve course evaluation reports for them. In such cases, you will also need administrative access to SmartEvals in order to pull the various reports available to administrators (see Question 1). For more information, see the Administrator FAQ page and the SmartEvals Reporting Manual for Administrators.

3. How do I manage data for CIOS?

Your role as data gatekeeper is to ensure the information regarding your department's courses is correct. This consists of two responsibilities: (1) checking all course information and (2) checking which courses are to be surveyed.

Check All Courses for Correct Information

Before the last day students can register and make schedule changes, ensure that all data entered into Banner for the term are correct. The course and instructor information must be correct in Banner for CIOS to be useful, because the Office of Academic Effectiveness downloads all course information into CIOS from Banner. Special attention should be given to cross-listed courses to ensure they are properly cross-listed. Also, any instructor that needs to be surveyed must be listed in Banner with greater than 0% instructional responsibility. Otherwise, no survey will be listed for that instructor. If any information for a course is incorrect, you must correct it in Banner.

Check the Courses to be Surveyed

After logging in at https://webapps.gatech.edu/cfeis/cios_new/login.cfm, you can ensure that all of your courses are listed properly and update which courses should be surveyed (select "Maintain Courses to Survey with Department Question Sets" then select to "Update" whichever courses need to be changed under the "Allow Surveys" field). Make sure to properly indicate a non-surveyable course. For example, thesis and dissertation classes (sometimes designated 4900s, 7998-8000, and 8997-9000) should not be surveyed. Lastly, there might be various departmental reasons for not surveying certain classes (e.g. department-wide seminars). Unless there are specific reasons otherwise, you should always make sure that surveys are allowed for a course. There is no reason to turn off surveys for courses that are not offered during the current semester as students can only fill out surveys for courses for which they are registered.

Please note: at this time, you no longer input department questions sets. If your department wishes to use its optional question sets, please contact cioshelp@gatech.edu. While this may change in the future, simply be aware that for now you will not be responsible for inputting departmental question sets.

4. 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.

5. 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, there will be only one survey per course. Within any survey in which there are multiple instructors, students will be asked separate questions about each instructor and each teaching assistant. Response rates for that course are measured per course as a whole and not by instructor.

6. 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.

7. Why did you add the TAOS?

The TAOS exists for four main reasons:

To provide feedback to the departments and the Institute about Teaching Assistant effectiveness.
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.
To provide TAs with evidence of teaching effectiveness than can be used as part of their academic and non-academic job search process.
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.

8. How do I setup TAOS survey information?

TAs need to be entered into Banner so that a survey will be generated for each of them. You must be able to tie each participating TA to a specific CRN (course number). You will need to identify the TAs for each section and obtain their 901 numbers and GTaccounts (multiple TAs for a given course are acceptable). Then, please follow the instructions below.

STEP 1: Collect the names of all TAs in your department as well as each TA's GTID (eg. 901234567) and GTaccount (eg. gtg123a, or msmith3). Then for each TA, determine the CRN of the course(s) they are assigned to (multiple TAs per CRN is acceptable). NOTE: Based on your departmental record keeping, it may make more sense to do these parts in reverse. You may want use the attached summary report to organize and store your data.

STEP 2: For each CRN, enter the GTID number of the TA(s) affiliated with that CRN into Banner.

Put in the term.
Put in the CRN#
Put in the TA's GTID number
Page Down
Put ID#
Associate Code: put in GTA for Graduate TA or UTA for Undergraduate TA
Press F3 to save.

STEP 3: Inform the Office of Academic Effectiveness (cioshelp@gatech.edu) that you have completed the BANNER data entry.

9. 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.

10. Where can I access historical CIOS data and information?

For historical data regarding 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.

11. Who can I contact about additional questions or problems?

Helpdesk, troubleshooting:

Email: cioshelp@gatech.edu
Phone: 404-385-1292

Office of Academic Effectiveness