University faculty has approved the new online evaluation system SmartEvals, which would replace the in-class paper format students have used in the past.

Like any new system, SmartEvals has benefits as well as its fair share of apprehensions and concerns.

Having online evaluations would undeniably be more sustainable, eliminating the 100,000 pieces of paper per year used for evaluations, Cathy Coghlan, director of the Office of Institutional Research, said.

There may also be a new, more extensive rubric to evaluate faculty, which would include five categories: student information, classwork, classroom interaction, course organization and the overall learning experience.

Another benefit would be its convenience to students. Online evaluation forms offer students flexibility to fill in the forms at their own pace and leisure. Giving students greater control in this way may result in them giving a more thorough evaluation of a professor when they are not pressed to turn in the paper form 10 minutes before the end of a class period.

Thorough evaluations would in turn provide faculty with the opportunity to modify and design a more effective classroom experience for students.

And here is where the apprehension lies.

Faculty might worry that students would forget to complete the online evaluation forms, depriving them of the feedback they need.

The power for change would lie in the hands of the students. With this power comes a student’s responsibility to engage in this teacher-student communication because students must realize their participation would ultimately serve them best.

Students would be able to offer, perhaps more whole-heartedly, advice to professors, helping them connect better with future students.