FAQs Faculty

Pursuant to University Policy F12-6, Section H.9, IRSA is committed to the secure storage and transmission of data in accordance with SJSU's stated policies and standards.

Authorized IRSA personnel can determine which students have completed an evaluation for each course section for administrative purposes. However, University Policy F12-6, Section H.6, stipulates that “All SOTEs must be administered in such a way as to maintain absolute confidentiality for the student respondents.” Accordingly, IRSA does not disclose information identifying student respondents or otherwise release information about individual students’ participation.

In accordance with University Policy F12-6, Section E.3 certain types of classes may be "excluded from all SOTE administration on technical or ethical grounds (e.g., individual studies, supervisions, experimental classes)." Furthermore, University Policy F12-6, Section E.4 stipulates that "Other than those classes excluded in E3 (above), SOTES shall be administered in all classes with enrollments of 5 or more students, and shall not be administered in classes with fewer than 5 enrollees. In courses with enrollments of 5-9 students, faculty may choose that SOTES not be administered in the course." 

IRSA automatically excludes course sections with fewer than five enrolled students. For eligible sections, faculty may work with their department to select or deselect courses for SOTE/SOLATE administration using the SOTE/SOLATE Selection Screens, consistent with the policy requirements outlined above.

Please email IRSA immediately at institutional-research@sjsu.edu if you think an error has been made.

Under University Policy F12-6, Section E.6, "SERB shall prepare the specific questions and survey instrument to be used to measure student opinions of teaching effectiveness. It shall decide the scale, format, and layout of the instrument, and determine the information that is provided in the reports generated by the surveys." 

SERB is the Student Evaluation Review Board, an operating committee of the Academic Senate.

Faculty members should confirm with their academic department that they are correctly listed in PeopleSoft Campus Solutions as instructors for the course sections they are team-teaching.

For team-taught courses, students evaluate each instructor individually through a separate survey. Each instructor receives only the results associated with their own survey.

Cross-listed and co-enrolled course sections are evaluated based on the combined enrollment across all associated sections. If the combined enrollment is five or more students, the sections meet the minimum enrollment threshold established in University Policy F12-6, Section E.4, and a course evaluation is administered. Survey responses from all sections are consolidated into a single report.

Faculty receive automated email notifications from the Explorance Blue platform every two to three days during the survey administration period for each course section that meets the minimum enrollment threshold of five students established in University Policy F12-6, Section E.4: "...SOTES shall be administered in all classes with enrollments of 5 or more students…"

Students receive automated email invitations from the Explorance Blue platform every two to three days during the survey administration period for each of their assigned course evaluations.

Students will also see a pop-up notification when they log in to Canvas. The notification will identify available course evaluations and provide links to the surveys.

Step-by-step instructions on how to enable the SOTE/SOLATE (Blue) link and disable the SOTE/SOLATE (Anthology) link in Canvas are available in the Faculty Guide: How to Update SOTE/SOLATE Navigation in Canvas.

All students enrolled in a course section are eligible to evaluate their instructor by responding to the appropriate SOTE/SOLATE survey.

During the SOTE/SOLATE survey administration period, you can view the response rate for any of your courses in the Explorance Blue platform.

For instructions, follow the steps in the Faculty Guide: How to Monitor Response Rates.

Faculty may inform students when SOTE/SOLATE surveys are available and encourage them to participate. Under University Policy F12-6, Section H.4 faculty may also "...provide time so that students may complete the SOTES in class, subject to the following provisions:

a) Students must be informed that they may complete the SOTE outside of class if they prefer, or if they do not have an appropriate electronic instrument with them in class.

b) If faculty provide class time, it must be at least a 15 minute block.

c) The faculty member must not be present while the survey is being completed."

Explorance Blue allows faculty to share a QR code in class that directs students to the SOTE/SOLATE survey.

For instructions, see the Faculty Guide: How to Boost Response Rates.

Per University Policy F12-6, Section H.2, "SERB will be responsible for researching ‘best practices’ and for determining collection and incentive methods that work for SJSU to achieve response rates comparable to paper-and-pencil evaluation response rates…"

SERB is the Student Evaluation Review Board, an operating committee of the Academic Senate.

Per University Policy F12-6, Section H.2, "SERB will be responsible for researching ‘best practices’ and for determining collection and incentive methods that work for SJSU...Incentives may include the avoidance of a temporary delay in the ability for students to access their official grades until after submitting their SOTES..." 

Under current practice, students who complete all of their assigned SOTE/SOLATE surveys can view their grades in MySJSU on the day when grades become viewable, based on the applicable calendar published by the Office of the Registrar. Students who have not completed all of their assigned surveys can view their grades one day after the final grade-submission deadline published on the same calendar.

The duration of the survey administration is determined by University Policy F12-6, Section H.5: "If the course is part of a standard semester, a minimum of the final ten calendar days of the course term will be provided to respond. If a course term is 15 instructional days or fewer, then the final four calendar days of the course term will be provided for students to respond."

Students receive automated email invitations from the Explorance Blue platform every two to three days during the survey administration period for all of their assigned course evaluations.

IRSA releases the evaluation reports in Explorance Blue three times per year at the conclusion of each SOTE/SOLATE administration period (fall, spring, summer) for all surveys included. The release date can be viewed on the IRSA Teaching Evaluation Calendar.

Under University Policy F12-6, Section H.9 "The AVP for Faculty Affairs shall determine procedures for secure access to this extension of the faculty personnel file. The AVP for Faculty Affairs, in consultation with the AVP for IEA and SERB, shall determine the most appropriate method for providing faculty and appropriate evaluators with access to the results of SOTEs."

Under current procedures IRSA makes the SOTE/SOLATE reports available to University Personnel for upload into eFaculty on the same day that they are released in Explorance Blue. In addition, Associate Deans and DROs approve access to SOTE/SOLATE reports in the platform for designated personnel in their colleges.

Faculty may access their own reports anytime in the Explorance Blue platform.

University Policy F12-6, Section D.4 allows for the Student Evaluation Review Board to "elect to administer one qualitative question at the same time as the SOTES (Student Opinion of Teaching Effectiveness Surveys), for the purpose of collecting student advice to share with other students." However, the current survey instrument in use (as outlined in the Interpretation Guide for the SOTES [pdf]) does not include such a question. Therefore, IRSA does not currently share any results with students.

All instructors of record can access their SOTE/SOLATE reports in Explorance Blue.

University Policy F12-6, Section F. 3 stipulates that “[f]aculty may request the removal of remarks in the qualitative surveys that are completely unrelated to teaching, such as comments that are bigoted, hateful, comment on personal appearance, or otherwise violate campus policies.” and that “such remarks will be removed after verification of their content by the Department Chair.”

Your course may not have met the enrollment threshold persuant to University Policy F12-6, Section E.4, "SOTES shall be administered in all classes with enrollments of 5 or more students."

OR

The response rate to the SOTE/SOLATE survey for your course may not have met the threshold of 3 or more students for release of the results per University Policy F12-6, Section H.6 "All SOTES must be administered in such a way as to maintain absolute confidentiality for the student respondents."

If you are unsure whether this applies to your course, please email us at institutional-research@sjsu.edu for confirmation.

For more information please see pp. 11-13 of the Interpretation Guide for the SOTES [pdf].

Click on the direct link to the Explorance Blue platform and use your SJSU credentials to sign in.

You can also log in to the platform using the SOTE/SOLATE (Blue) link in Canvas or by clicking on the link in the email notification that you received.

IRSA automatically gives access to Explorance Blue to all faculty actively employed at SJSU. If you are experiencing difficulty logging in, please contact us at institutional-research@sjsu.edu as soon as possible.