The following terminology is used throughout this document and the evaluation system:
- Item - A question or statement which the user responds to (e.g. I would rate this course as:, What is your rating of this course?)
- Template - A set of items that can be turned into an evaluation more than once, can contain items from multiple levels (a holder for questions only, cannot be taken by students)
- Evaluation - A set of items, created from a template, that is assigned to schools/depts./courses and presented to the students within those entities
- Scale - A likert scale, used for the majority of items in the system
- Expert - Items, templates, etc. created by an expert in evaluation and assessment
- Category - A general topic area for an item (e.g. Student Development, Teaching Effectiveness), this is used to generally classify question items in the system and for pooling items
- Objective - A goal related to evaluation or assessment (e.g. Knowledge, Participation, Difficulty), this is used for more fine grained classification of items in the system
- Owner - The creator of an evaluation, template, item, etc., this person has rights to control all aspects
- Control - Create/Add, Edit/Modify, Delete/Remove the entity or entities in the area referred to
- Confidential - User identity is stored but not accessible to anyone but the database administrator, this is how the evaluation system works
- Anonymous - User identity is not stored in the system, this is NOT how the evaluation system links data to users
- Hierarchy - A pyramid like structure, defined on a site by site basis that defines the level of admins based on the location of schools, departments, and courses
- Institution - The entire site that is using the course evaluation tool (University, etc...)
- School - An entity within the institution but directly below it (College, etc...)
- Department - An entity within a school but directly below it, contains courses
- Course - A single course, contains instructors and students (cross listed courses are represented as 2 courses in the evaluation system)