UCLA creates online system for theses, dissertations and evaluations
Undergraduate and graduate departments alike are developing new electronic submission processes for class evaluations and for dissertations and theses.
Starting next quarter, all graduate final work, including master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, will be submitted only electronically.
In addition, student evaluations, which rate professor and teaching assistant performance at the end of the quarter, are switching from paper to electronic versions for some departments. The Office of Instructional Development’s online evaluation pilot program, which began in 2009, now includes 40 departments.
Both programs were launched to increase time and cost efficiency, as well as to decrease paper use, officials said.
The process of submitting theses and dissertations is often a hectic process for graduate students. Students must get signatures from a variety of professors before submitting their work, and then bring the finished work in person to be filed at the library.
This was occasionally problematic ““ professors could be out of town or on sabbatical and incapable of signing the form, or students could have moved away and would have to return to submit their work, said April de Stefano, director of academic services for the graduate department.
With the new system, there will be an online signature form and all work will be submitted digitally through the document program ProQuest.
The old system was also more expensive for students. All final texts had to be printed on special acid-free archival paper that could cost the student close to $50, de Stefano said.
While UCLA is the last of the UC schools to adopt online submissions for dissertations, it is the first to make the entire process ““ including the signature sheet ““ electronic, de Stefano said.
Vanessa Thulsiraj, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering, said she remembers having to drive to Calabasas to get the signature of her professor before submitting her master’s thesis.
“It was definitely a hassle and probably took half a day to complete everything,” she said.
Thulsiraj said she is looking forward to skipping some of the extra steps when she is submitting her dissertation.
Online class evaluations gain popularity
Filling out evaluations of professors and teaching assistants online, as opposed to filling out a Scantron form in class, is not a new idea, but it’s gaining in popularity.
At the start of the evaluation pilot program, Joanne Valli-Meredith, director of evaluation and instructional assessment, said she had to go to departments to convince them to join.
Many departments are now requesting the service, she said.
“Now, we have to turn down departments because we don’t want it to grow too quickly,” Valli-Meredith said. “Participation in the pilot has grown well beyond our greatest expectations.”
The office has been careful to avoid going too fast with the pilot to make sure that they work out kinks and respond to comments from departments currently in the program before adding new participants all at once, Valli-Meredith said.
One challenge, however, is that digital evaluations yield lower response rates as students no longer complete the paper form in class, Valli-Meredith said.
“When we started this pilot, we were focusing specifically on trying to find ways to increase response rates,” Valli-Meredith said.
The office refrained from offering incentives, such as entry into a raffle, or enforcing punishment, such as withholding grades, to increase response rates to the survey like other colleges do, Valli-Meredith said.
Research has shown that, in those situations, students simply rush through the evaluation, she said.
Instead, the office is trying to increase response rates by sending out email reminders and offering the option to fill out the evaluation on a smartphone or tablet.
While some students said they would not be inclined to fill out the evaluations online, others said the move is a good transition because of its environmental impact and convenience.
“It’s tricky because a lot of students might not take the extra effort to log on. It’s still a good idea though because it’s sustainable,” said Amy Giroux, a second-year psychobiology student. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”
