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HelioCampus AC - Eval - Getting Started with Online Course Evaluations (Admin) [UW-Madison]
HelioCampus AC LLC (Assessment, Evaluation, Feedback & Intervention System) is a web-based assessment management platform that facilitates the collection and application of real-time assessment data. For more information about the transition to online course evaluations visit the Digital Course Evaluation Surveys.
Overview of HelioCampus AC Course Evaluations
There are three steps to complete to create HelioCampus AC course evaluations.
- Create a survey form - The survey form is the master copy of the survey. It has all of the course evaluation questions. Each department can decide how many forms they wish to create: maybe only one master survey; maybe one undergrad, and one graduate level survey; maybe a different survey form to assess TAs.
- Schedule the survey form - To put a survey form into action, that form needs to be scheduled to run. You can create a schedule each semester. Or, schedules can be set to run automatically each semester.
- Survey instance - Once the survey schedule is published, it will produce a survey instance. The survey instance is the specific copy of the survey form that will be distributed to the students. It is at this point that you will specify which course sections will receive the survey for this semester.
For each of the steps above, further details are listed below.
Accessing HelioCampus AC
Unlike student and instructor accounts, HelioCampus AC college/department administrator accounts are NOT created automatically. To request a new HelioCampus AC administrator account, see HelioCampus AC - Users - Requesting a User Account [UW-Madison].
After your account has been set up, you can log into HelioCampus AC at https://heliocampusac.wisc.edu.
Initial Setup
When you first get access to HelioCampus AC, you should perform some initial setup tasks.
- Set the appropriate academic contact for your department. This information will appear only in HelioCampus AC emails to faculty. See HelioCampus AC - Eval - Setting an Academic Contact (Admin) [UW-Madison] for instructions.
Creating a Survey Form
Survey forms possess the questions that are distributed to the survey participants (that is, the students).
- To create a new survey form, see the instructions at HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Form - Creating a Survey Form (Admin) [UW-Madison].
- After you have created your survey form, you can add questions by following the instructions at HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Form - Editing Title and Details (Admin) [UW-Madison].
- We strongly recommend that you add a roll-up question to the survey. The presence of this feature allows you and/or instructors to add section-specific questions to the survey. See HelioCampus AC - Eval - Survey Questions - Adding Course Section Specific Questions (Admin) [UW-Madison].
- (Optional) Add custom metrics to your survey. See HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Form - Creating Survey Metrics (Admin) [UW-Madison].
Setting up a Survey Schedule
After you have completed and published your Survey Form, you will need to set up a Survey Schedule. Survey Schedules determine when your survey will be sent. The Survey Schedule name is the name the students will see. You can create a new Survey Schedule every semester or, if your survey will not be changing from semester to semester, you can set the schedule to run every semester (recommended).
- Set up your Survey Schedule following the instructions at HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Schedule - Creating a New Survey Schedule (Admin) [UW-Madison]
Managing and Assigning Course Sections to Survey
A Survey is what most users think of as the actual survey. You will hear it called survey instance in much of our training and documentation. It is created after you publish your Survey Schedule.
You can perform administrative tasks at the Survey level, such as changing release dates, excluding instructors from evaluation, and adding section-specific evaluation questions.
- To update settings including survey release dates, see HelioCampus AC - Eval - Survey Settings (Admin).
- Your HelioCampus AC survey will include the general, department-level and department-instructor questions that you set up in the Survey Form. To add course-specific questions, see HelioCampus AC - Eval - Survey Questions - Adding Course Section Specific Questions (Admin) [UW-Madison]
Most importantly, you must assign your Survey to the course sections in your department that you wish to survey. If you do not assign the survey, students will not be able to take it. Course sections must be assigned new every semester.
- To assign course sections to a survey, see HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Instance - Assigning Course Sections to a Survey (Admin) [UW-Madison].
- For courses that are cross-listed between two or more departments, only the primary/parent department should assign the survey unless prior arrangements have been made. Read more about assigning cross-listed courses.
- In some instances, you will want to exclude specific course instructors from being surveyed. This option will only work if the survey form has instructor specific question type used. See HelioCampus AC - Eval Survey Instance - Excluding Instructors from Questions (Admin) [UW-Madison].
- After you assign your course sections, you may want to run the course survey assignment audit to confirm that you didn't miss anything. You need to wait until the following day for this report to show assignments made. See Course Survey Assignment Audit - Admins.
Creating Reports
- The Course Section Trend Analysis is the most common report run by UW-Madison HelioCampus AC administrators. This report will generate the results for each instructor in your department along with a departmental average for comparison. See HelioCampus AC - Eval Results - Course Section Trend Analysis Report (Admin) [UW-Madison] for more information.
Additional Resources
- Training events can be found on our UW-Madison Events Calendar by searching "Learn@UW Online Trainings". Synchronous trainings and Q&As for HelioCampus AC administrators are held several times per year.
- To see all of UW-Madison's HelioCampus AC documentation, visit the HelioCampus AC topic [Link for topic 6723 is unavailable at this time.] on the KB.
- For information on the digital course evaluation initiative at UW-Madison, visit the Provost's Course Evaluation Survey page.
- For technical questions, email learnuwsupport@wisc.edu.