Coursemetric evaluates student satisfaction

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, April, 2000

In response to increasing pressure for educational institutions to evaluate their programs, E-Curriculum (Berkeley, CA) has introduced Coursemetric. The online course evaluation tool is used to survey students and instructors regarding their teaching and learning experiences. It can be used with either online or face-to-face courses, but the company is focusing initial marketing efforts on online learning. Coursemetric automatically and anonymously compiles student evaluations, provides immediate course quality feedback and charts local outcomes against best practices.

The product is built on a web-browser interface with an evaluation application powered by an Oracle relational database. Students are surveyed on course content, quality of instruction, and technology. Instructors are surveyed on training, support, technology, and teaching techniques. Survey questions come from Coursemetric's item bank and can be customized by instructors. Coursemetric will remain focused on student satisfaction, not academic assessments.

The product provides instructors with feedback delivered immediately over the web. In addition to data on an individual course, instructors can request reports comparing all their courses or sections of a single course. Administrators can use the data to track response to an individual course and instructor, and can compare the results across a department or the entire institution.

Coursemetric also allows comparison of results with other institutions by aggregating data collected from all users. Comparisons can be made by type of institution (e.g., two-year, four-year, public, or private), discipline, region, or all Coursemetric users. E-Curriculum ceo David Harden believes that by aggregating data not previously available Coursemetric offers educational institutions and technology companies a valuable opportunity to share what they've learned about delivering online courses.

Harden stresses that Coursemetric represents the leading edge of evaluation using the latest technologies. Instructors can use the data to improve courses. Administrators can use the data to design better systems for support for instructors, resulting in an increased ability to attract and retain students. A particularly attractive feature of Coursemetric is that it collects demographic data on students enrolled in online courses, information that can be used to tailor marketing efforts for future courses. Harden told ISEM that as the number of Coursemetric users grows, the aggregate data set will become increasingly valuable to users.

Because it is web-based, the product does not require special hardware, software, or maintenance by on-site IT professionals. All data processing and report generation are done by E-Curriculum at a central location. The company touts the product's ease of use for instructors, stating that it can be learned in less than 30 minutes by using online tutorials. The company also provides unlimited technical support.

The product was beta tested in Fall 1999, and the company is now working on enhancing Coursemetric's basic features for a pilot of the system this Spring. To date 50 institutions have enrolled in the pilot. Coursemetric will be available for full license for the 2000-01 academic year. E-Curriculum is not marketing Coursemetric at this time and clients are most often attracted by word of mouth. Client institutions will pay an annual flat fee of $3,000-$35,000 to use the service. Rates are based on the number of courses, the average student enrollment and support requirements. A product demo is available at www.coursemetric.com.

E-Curriculum

E-Curriculum is a start-up company founded by a small group of educators and Internet technology specialists. The founders recognized that educators, and the companies that develop products, needed to better understand the ways technology affects education. E-Curriculum began as a consulting group studying these issues for companies developing technology-based educational products, such as Compaq Computer, McGraw Hill and Scholastic.

Harden says that no other companies offer a product comparable to Coursemetric for evaluation of online courses. The company distinguishes its product from bulletin boards, run by e-commerce companies like CollegeHQ.com, on which students express opinions about products, courses and instructors. In these cases, the participants are self-selected so data lacks the precision necessary to institutions.

Harden believes that the offering's uniqueness puts the company is in a strong position to experience aggressive growth over the next 12-18 months. He expects E-Curriculum's revenues and investors to triple in that time period. The development of Coursemetric was initially funded by revenue from E-Curriculum's consulting business and angel investors. The company is currently in a round of VC financing.

The collected data from Coursemetric users will provide additional revenue through a series of Coursemetric Reports. Highlights from the first report follow this article.