The Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) system will be centrally supported by technology partners in Cornell IT, with local control for data requirements that are unique to each school and college. The new SETs system will also support roll-out of a Core Set of research-informed evaluation questions that support fairer and more consistent evaluations of teaching while strengthening feedback to faculty.

The Vendor Selection committee that focused on SETs systems created a list of requirements and met with representatives from several vendors used by peers at similar institutions. After multiple demonstrations and conversations, the committee chose Explorance, a tool used by many leading universities around the country, including more than half of our Ivy+ peers.

Explorance Blue is a robust system that allows for customization of the core questions and detailed data analytics of the results. This software also offers dashboard monitoring of results and trends over time.

Student Invitation

A typical teaching evaluation invitation is delivered via Cornell email and/or Canvas. Reminder emails can be set to send automatically according to department and college policy.

Mobile Friendly

Each step of the new SETs platform works on mobile devices — from opening an invitation in Canvas to completing a survey on your phone.

Faculty Course Evaluation History

The new SETs environment will collate course evaluation results over time, enabling faculty members to track changes and compare results over time.

Results Dashboard

When the SETs evaluations are complete, chairs and deans can analyze results through a series of curated dashboards showing trends through time along with cross-department and cross-college comparisons. Individual course results can also be easily gathered and exported to include in reviews for promotion and tenure.

Blue 9.3

The Cornell University SETs phased implementation will initially launch on Explorance Blue 9.3.

Some features include:

Creates a Safe Space for Feedback: Enabling organizations to collect insights across communities, with advanced authentication and expanded Single Sign-On (SSO) support for data integrity and protection.

Democratizes Feedback: Covering every angle of experience. Regardless of where one is in their employment or education journey, Blue 9 provides a dedicated space for their voice, offering an intuitive and personalized experience.