The program is an attempt to increase lagging student response rates to online SIRS forms, said Doug Estry, MSU’s associate provost for undergraduate education.

Low response rates have led instructors and department chairs to question whether the information obtained — which can be used in faculty evaluations and can factor into pay rates — is an accurate representation of student opinions, Estry said.

“We wanted to find a way to improve those response rates, so that we could potentially move to more online assessments,” Estry said.

“They are greener environmentally, more efficient and potentially would allow faculty to ask more specific questions, but at the same time, get a good response from students, so that we would have better information for enhancing classroom instruction at MSU.”

Currently, response rates for online SIRS forms are between 20 percent and 30 percent, Estry said.

“What’s happening right now is students get the request to fill out the online SIRS form, and a lot of times, it gets ignored,” Estry said. “We will see whether or not, with this kind of incentive, if we can get the students to go there if they will take a couple of minutes to fill it out.”

Zoology professor Richard Hill, who sits on Academic Council, said during Tuesday’s Executive Committee of Academic Council meeting that the online SIRS forms are not statistically valid, and faculty should take a stand against the invalid data. The pilot program could solve the issue of low response rates, he said after the meeting.

“Suppose (a professor is) really good, and the chairperson says, ‘Wow, I want to reward this instructor for these really good evaluations,’” Hill said after the meeting. “Right away, somebody’s going to say, ‘It’s only 40 percent.’ It’s not a firm basis for giving recognition. The same thing works exactly opposite.”

The evaluation system is crucial to the university and without valid information, a university is in a “weak position” in terms of evaluating the classroom experience, he said.

All colleges are required to give SIRS forms under MSU’s Academic Policy guidelines, but it is up to each to decide the form of the evaluation.

The majority of courses still utilize the paper forms, which yield a response rate between about 60 percent and 80 percent, Estry said.

Teresa Tavormina, an English professor, said her department has continued to use paper forms. There is value to taking the more low-tech route, she said.

“The online forms require people to plan when they’re going to do it, and at the end of the semester, that’s a very difficult thing to do when you’ve got other things going on,” Tavormina said.

Economics senior Michael Vonschlachter said he did not think more students would respond to SIRS forms if not doing so stalled the release of their grades.

“Most of the students don’t care,” he said. “If they make it so they get their grades later — a lot of students don’t want to know what their grades are. Paper is convenient because they’re already there, you already have a captive audience.”