SACS requires that students in all undergraduate and graduate distance education courses be given the opportunity to evaluate their courses; the intended evaluation process must be spelled out in the required approval documents, and the evaluation process is typically reviewed as part of the reaccreditation process. The college and academic department are responsible for conducting and maintaining the results of course evaluations. Distance Education courses should be evaluated under the same circumstances as on-campus courses (i.e., if the department requires course evaluations in summer term, the ext/de course should be evaluated in summer term). Evaluations of distance education courses should be conducted so that the anonymity of the students is preserved. All questions regarding the evaluation process should be directed to the department chair.

Site-Based Courses

In site-based courses, faculty members may take the evaluations to their classes, but they should not be present while the evaluations are completed, and they should not be given access to the evaluations after they have been completed. Evaluations may be conducted by a site coordinator or administrator (if the course is offered at one of Appalachian's four off-campus centers) or a student may be given a stamped manila envelope that has been addressed to the college office with instructions to collect all of the evaluations and place the envelope in the mail as soon as possible.

Online Courses

In online courses, evaluations may be conducted online or by mail. If evaluations are conducted online, they should NOT be conducted within the AppalNet course as this will violate the guarantee of anonymity. If evaluations are conducted by mail, they should be mailed to individual students along with a stamped manila envelope that has been addressed to the college dean's office with instructions for how to complete the evaluation and to return it using the envelope. The evaluations should be stamped with the course prefix, number, and section # before they are mailed to the students.

Student evaluation of support and services:

Students are given the opportunity annually to provide feedback on the quality of student administrative support and services (orientation, admission, registration, library, advising, etc.) they receive from the institution. This "program" evaluation is conducted by the Office of Distance Education. It does not address any faculty or instructional issues, and students are strongly discouraged from providing any feedback on them. In the event that any comments about faculty or coursework, those comments are deleted as they are not part of the quantitative data collected by Distance Education and other student service providers.