In late 2006 and early 2007 a University subcommittee was charged by the Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP) and the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs (SCFA) to revise the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) form. The new form, now called the Student Rating of Teaching (SRT) form, was pilot tested in Spring 2007 with approximately 50 courses and included specific teacher and student input. After some further revision, the new SRT was unanimously approved by the Faculty Senate in December 2007. Starting with Spring Semester 2008, the new SRT replaces all previous forms of the SET. The new SRT also incorporates the new student release items. These questions were selected by the Student Senate to provide future students with information about the courses.

With the new form, teaching is more holistically assessed and results are relevant to the classroom experience and linked to the new student learning outcomes. The new SRT is expected to improve how teaching is assessed by students and help instructors better understand how they can improve teaching. This new form has a solid research base on student learning and instructional excellence. Being guided by research further assists the University's goal to become one of the top three public research universities.

University policy requires that each course taught by an instructor be rated by students once each year. Detailed and updated policy requirements may be found via this link. The Office of Measurement Services (OMS) prints and distributes the Student Rating of Teaching forms, collects the completed data from departments, summarizes and then distributes the results culminating in reports to individual faculty and Department head/chairs.

OMS provides a variety of services to help instructors evaluate their teaching.
Services include:

• Analysis of results and retain numerical data
• Distribution of summary data to instructors and department chairs; original questionnaires are returned to the instructor
• SRT data which has "student release" permission is given to ONESTOP to be placed on the web for viewing

Department chairs and committees use course evaluations during annual faculty reviews to make decisions on salary increases, promotions and tenure. The information obtained from SRT evaluations can be useful to instructors by explaining how different groups respond to his/her teaching. OMS ensures that all SRT evaluations are securely handled and that the proper parties receive their results.