Teaching Assistant Resources

About Course Evaluations

The Physics Department utilizes both an online course evaluation system and a traditional scantron format course evaluation process each quarter as the methods for gathering feedback from students regarding their satisfaction with our courses, as well as instructor/teaching assistant performance. In January 2015, the Physics faculty voted in favor of conducting all evaluations for PHY 1, PHY 7, PHY 9, PHY 10, and AST+ courses online. The department acknowledges that Senate faculty instructors ultimately retain authority over the format that student evaluations take in their courses (hardcopy or online).

Scantron Format Course Evaluations

Traditional scantron evaluations are prepared in the main physics office (room 174) and typically distributed a week prior to final examinations, although faculty can request a different delivery time as needed. Once the completed scantrons have been returned to the main physics office, the results are usually available within 2-3 weeks. Instructors and teaching assistants are then notified that their results are available; these results can then be emailed in pdf format upon request.

Information regarding the Academic Course Evaluation (ACE) Online Course Evaluation process

The Physics Department utilizes the ACE online system to evaluate the majority of our PHY and AST courses. The online evaluations are generally set to launch during weeks 6 and 7 of each quarter, and to close at the designated final examination start time for the course being evaluated. Below are important details and tips about the process:

  • If applicable, it is the course instructor’s responsibility to remind their lab or DL TA’s that the evaluations will take place online. For PHY 9A, 9B, and 9C, discussion evaluations are setup to run 1-2 weeks ahead of the lecture/lab evaluations. PHY 9 lecture/lab evaluations launch once the discussion evaluations end and their results are released; the lecture/lab evaluations will then remain open to students up until the designated final examination start time. The reason the PHY 9ABC evaluations are broken up in this fashion is to ensure that evaluation results between lab and discussion TA’s assigned to the same class remain confidential, and also to comply with system restrictions built into the ACE application.
  • Although the students will receive an auto-notification via email letting them know when their online evaluations are open, it is VERY important that both the instructor and TAs mention and remind students about the online evaluations in class. Ideally, instructors/TAs will allow time in class or lab for students to log onto the ACE website and complete their evaluations (it is mobile device friendly). You can also list or post the ACE URL in your classrooms as an easily visible reminder that course evaluations are taking place. The URL for students is: https://eval.ucdavis.edu/student. Additionally, staff will occasionally send out email reminders to students prompting them to complete their online evaluations in order to help raise response rates.
  • Instructors and TAs can view their currently open evaluations at https://eval.ucdavis.edu/Home . The same link can be used to view evaluation results after ACE has closed and final grades have been submitted.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the ACE Online Evaluation process, please contact Amy Folz (UG Academic Advisor) via email at aefolz@ucdavis.edu, or stop by the main office in Physics 174.