COMMUNITY COURSE ASSESSMENT
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
This project aims to provide DCIT students and staff with an anonymous way of sharing and viewing feedback with respect to a particular course that the department offers. The project will take the form of a web-based application which will allow users to select from one of the many DCIT courses, and enter their feedback about the course. This feedback will be made public to other users so that their criticisms can be viewed by other students and the administration. Additionally, there will be automated analysis of the words entered by the critic to determine the type of feedback that was received in a particular submission. The feedback post will then be shaded a particular color based whether the analysis is positive or negative. There will be no registration involved within the application such to ensure that there is complete anonymity. However, it will be required that the critic enter a valid @my.uwi.edu email when posting to the site; to ensure that a valid student is making the post. A confirmation email will also be sent to that email address to validate that the student is, in fact, the owner of the email address. The feedback posts will also be filterable by course code to enable ease of searching. The system will be accessible on both mobile and desktop devices to enable wider accessibility.
RATIONALE FOR THE PROJECT
Presently, there does not exist a system whereby students can gain an adequate grasp of what can be expected when they sign up for a DCIT course within the faculty. As a result, students end up choosing courses which they may not interest them due to the lack of insight available to them. Additionally, the administration of DCIT can also find this information insightful in order to revise course content and/or teaching methods. The proposed project seeks to develop a modern solution for students and staff, whereby course participants can anonymously post their feedback on DCIT courses. This feedback can then be anonymously viewed by interested participants, and DCIT staff.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
One of the benefits to the business that the software provides is the ability to efficiently view feedback on the various courses that DCIT has to offer. Additionally, the built-in method for analyzing reviews streamlines the sorting and reading of feedback; saving the department’s time. Another benefit is that the feedback posted would be anonymous; allowing for students to freely post their reviews on the courses. The anonymity factor of the system is crucial as it offers peace of mind to the critics so that they will not be treated unjustly based on their unbiased opinion. A final benefit is that the anonymous information from the system can provide insight into a course which can be used to revise course content and/or teaching methods.