The online course evaluation system will change this semester so that students can include final exams in their evaluations, and early access to grades will be available only to students who fill out their evaluations, according to an April 22 e-mail to the student body from Provost Marty Krauss.Under the new system, students will be able to complete their course evaluations throughout finals week, in addition to during the three weeks before finals, which was the case last year. According to Krauss' e-mail, students who complete their evaluations will be able to see their grades as soon as they are posted. "For those students who have not completed all of their evaluations, grades will remain suppressed until five days after the close of the examination period," she wrote. Krauss wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that course evaluations have several important functions beyond their use in the Course Evaluation Guide, which the Student Union compiles to provide summaries of evaluations for students choosing classes, including faculty assessments. "The results of course evaluations are used annually in the review of faculty pursuant to merit increases, in the review of faculty for tenure and promotions, and in the mentoring processes in place for assisting junior faculty," she wrote.

According to Brandeis' website, the undergraduate completion rate in fall 2009 was 57 percent, and the overall completion rate was 61 percent, excluding evaluations from the Rabb School of Continuing Studies. Krauss' e-mail to the student body explained that withholding early grades is an attempt to improve those rates.

Also, students who complete all of their course evaluations will be entered into a raffle as an additional incentive.

Krauss wrote in her e-mail to the Justice that her office has monitored the response rates since the online evaluation system was implemented in 2007. She wrote that the Committee for the Support of Teaching, Library and Technology Services, University Registrar Mark Hewitt, the academic deans and student advisory groups were all consulted in the discussion of the changes.

Krauss wrote, "We all hope that students will understand that completing course evaluations is part of the process of taking a course. I have received many e-mails from students praising the changes we've instituted, particularly because they feel they will provide more thorough evaluations once the stress of exams is over."

Dara Yaffe '10 said that she would want to fill out her course evaluations regardless of the new measures, but "at Brandeis, for good or for bad, people are grade-conscious, so they really hit the nail on the head" in choosing a system that withholds students' grades until after they fill out their evaluations.

Miriam Nachum '10 said of the change in times that the evaluations will be available, "It's good that it's after finals, because I think your final is always a big part of the grade."

She said that she understands that some students would want to take their grades into consideration when evaluating a course, but she considers the changes to the system improvements.