Course Evaluations
What is Blue? It is an online course evaluation tool that JMU utilizes to gather valuable student feedback and support a positive learning experience.
The purpose of this site:
- Provide technical support and user guides for common tasks in Blue
- Provide evaluation schedules for each session and semester in an academic year
- Provide sample reports and an item / question bank
- List the guiding principles for using this system for online evaluations of courses
The Blue system will provide these benefits:
- Full automation of the evaluation process
- Longer, more in-depth student responses to open-ended questions
- Options for students to complete evaluations outside of class time if desired
- Options for Faculty to select specific dates/times when evaluations are available to students
- Instructors receive evaluation reports more quickly, in days, not weeks or months
- Digital instructor reports containing statistic and graphical reporting
- Instructor access through multiple channels, including direct logins using JMU credentials
History of Blue at JMU
Conversations began in the Fall semester of 2011, about the course evaluation process at JMU and the need to find a solution for evaluating online courses. Through the work of the Student Evaluations of Teaching Task Force, faculty members researched and investigated best practices of evaluating teaching and discovered commonalities in the variety of evaluation tools being utilized at JMU. This work, in addition to information from campus conversations on academic rigor and sustainability resulted in the recommendation to move to a campus-wide online evaluation system.
Based on recommendations from the Student Evaluations of Teaching Task Force, the University purchased the Blue online evaluation system. With the support of the Blue Project Implementation Team and the Blue Executive Committee, the pilot rollout of Blue began in Spring, 2013. The onboarding process was slow and deliberate, making accommodations for many technological advancements in higher education online accesses. The transition from a primarily paper-based course evaluation process to the online Blue Course Evaluation System was successfully completed in Fall, 2020. All academic units are now using the online system.
We invite you to use this website to educate and inform about the evaluation of teaching and the Blue course evaluation system.