Recommendations for student course evaluations

Hi Leslie and welcome to the E-learning Heroes community! I think how you design your course evaluations depends on what purpose you want them to serve.  Asking if they "liked" the course probably isn't very valuable in most cases while questions that can give feedback to make the course better usually is. 

All things being equal, I've found that short and simple has given me the best response rates.  After trying several different versions I have landed on one that is something like this: 

• Name (Optional)
• Comments: 
• Would you like to be contacted? (Y/N) 
• 3-4 super quick ratings type questions that can be answered in a single click 

Leaving an comment box allows people the option for giving you kudos and more importantly any kind of constructive criticism which I think is more valuable.   I've received everything from notes about misspellings to really great comments on the grey areas of policies which were forwarded on and resulting in the policy being changed. 

In my opinion, if you only provide Likert scale type questions you're missing out on some potentially valuable feedback. You might get some ideas from the templates that a lot of the online survey tools have like this one:  http://www.surveygizmo.com/survey-examples/education-surveys/course-evaluation-survey/

My experiences may be different from others so I'd love to hear what other folks are doing or even see some other examples. 

I created a sample elearning evaluation form that you're welcome to adapt at http://www.uncannyowl.com/free-learning-tools/. It may not be entirely appropriate to your situation but it might at least provide some ideas about the types of questions you could include.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Thanks Ryan, this is very helpful!