Important People
• CIS Contacts: The primary staff members assigned to manage course evaluations for a department. Most departments have one Primary Contact and at least one secondary contact.
o Primary Contact: The CIS Contact primarily responsible for a department’s course evaluation requests, administration, and final configuration. This contact is also, unless indicated otherwise, the primary authority on granting access to new staff members, and the individual whose name and contact information is provided to faculty members on any automated emails sent by the CIS office.
o Secondary Contact: A CIS Contact who supports the Primary Contact in their responsibilities. Should a Primary Contact leave their position without identifying a replacement, the most-senior Secondary Contact shall be automatically elevated to Primary Contact status.
• Course Schedulers: The primary staff members responsible for assigning courses, and their respective instructors, to specific rooms during available times. These individuals often have the best understanding of an instructor’s wishes with regards to course groupings, cross-listings, and teaching assignments.
• FaSET Contacts: The staff members responsible for finalizing course information data provided by course schedulers and ensuring that it is communicated to state agencies as appropriate. The FaSET system data is fed directly into Canvas as well as the CIS system.
• P&T Contacts: Responsible for compiling, formatting, and organizing CIS data into folders which are used to complete dossiers for faculty members being reviewed for promotion, tenure, teaching awards, and other annual reviews.
• Associate Deans/Assistant Deans: Senior administrators within each academic school or college. The administrators often held ultimately accountable for Promotion, Tenure, and Faculty Review will typically hold the title of Associate or Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs.
Abbreviations
• CIS: Course Instructor Survey. The electronic administration of CIS is sometimes referred to as "eCIS" or "electronic Course Instructor Survey".
• FaSET: The "Faculty and Student Electronic Tracking System." The system used by Course Schedulers from which CIS data is populated.
• FERPA: The "Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act," which governs many of the data collection and sharing policies of the CIS Office.
• IRRIS: The office of “Institutional Research, Reporting and Information Systems,” within the Executive Vice President and Provost’s Office.
• AIS: Academic Information Systems, Office of the Provost.
• SIS: Student Information Systems, Office of the Registrar.
• TORA: Texas Open Records Act, also known as Texas Public Information Act.
• EID: Electronic Identification, a 3–8-character unique identifying code used by students, faculty, and staff members to access secure university systems.
• P&T: Promotion and Tenure, the shorthand often used for all faculty review aside from that conducted for the purposes of determining teaching awards.
• CSU: College, School, and Unit. The term often used to describe a single distinct academic organization at a modular level. This term can be used to help distinguish academic units that do not follow the standard nomenclature (ex: The Butler School of Music vs. The McCombs Business School).
Terms and Definitions
• 12th Class Day Enrollment: The official enrollment count reported to the State of Texas for each class (sometimes called “Census Day”). These values are sent to the CIS system from the Office of Institutional Research, Reporting and Information Systems (IRRIS).
• Base Form: The term used to distinguish which of the four (4) primary questionnaire templates is used to determine the first 14-23 questions used on a Course Instructor Survey: The B100 Basic Form, the E100 Expanded Form, the S050 Teaching Assistant Form, or the S151 Law School Form.
• [Base Form] Supplement: The term used to distinguish which of the sixteen (16) secondary questionnaire templates is used to determine the remaining questions used on a Course Instructor Survey. Visit the Survey #CONTENT
• Convenience Copies: Any copies of old paper survey forms kept by faculty or departments.
• Core 12 Questions: The 12 common questions shared among all questionnaires, for all courses, at UT Austin. They are all rated using the same Likert Scale options (Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Agree, Strongly Agree) with the exception of Questions 10, 11, (Very Unsatisfactory, Unsatisfactory, Satisfactory, Very Good, Excellent) and 12 (Insufficient, Very Light, Just Right, Heavy, Excessive). These questions are (in order):
1. The instructor clearly defined and explained the course objectives and expectations.
2. The instructor was prepared for each instructional activity.
3. The instructor communicated information effectively.
4. The instructor encouraged me to take an active role in my own learning.
5. The instructor was available to students either electronically or in person.
6. The course was well organized.
7. The instructor made me feel free to ask questions, disagree, and express my ideas.
8. The course materials (e.g., text and supplemental materials) were helpful to me.
9. Overall, I learned a great deal in this course.
10. Overall, this instructor was…
11. Overall, this course was…
12. In my opinion, the workload in this course was…
• Course ID: Identifying code to distinguish a single course within an academic catalog from another. Usually consisting of a 1–3-character prefix, followed by a 3 digit number, and in some cases, a suffix letter to further distinguish variations of a course from each other.
• Cross-Listing: An umbrella term used commonly to refer to a single course with multiple Unique ID’s. These are distinguished within the FaSET system using one of four (1 of 4) terms:
o Inventory Same-As: Two or more courses associated with one another within a course catalog. Used often to provide students with options to take courses outside of their academic department without violating requirements for professional licensing and certification (ex: Accounting students must take a certain number of courses with the ACC prefix to qualify for the CPA exam. This type of cross-listing provides expanded opportunities for accounting students to take relevant coursework outside of the accounting department by designating these courses with an ACC prefix.)
o Schedule Same-As: Two or more courses associated with one another strictly within the FaSET and Classroom Manager 2.0 system. These are often used to provide a “trial period” for courses expected to be associated as “Inventory Same-As” at some future date.
o Room Share: Two or more courses sharing the same room at the same time on the same days. Used infrequently in a wide variety of circumstances. (ex: A study abroad course in which undergrads and graduate students are enrolled in a single “course” visiting a foreign country over a Maymester.)
o Multi-Section: A single course, usually consisting of several hundred students, separated into multiple sections for the purposes of simplifying the management and administration of the course.
• Department Default [Form Type]: #CONTENT
• Early Survey: A survey that is administered to a class of students at a time that is earlier than the Official CIS Administration Period. Results for Early Surveys are not released prior to those administered during the official CIS Administrative Period.
• Form Type: #CONTENT
• Grades Submission Period: The period of time within which instructors of record may submit grades to the Office of the Registrar.
• Green eReports Folder: A folder connected to the mainframe provided to UT faculty and staff for the purposes of facilitating remote work with UT Direct systems. For instructions on setting up your own folder, visit the Texas Service Now site.
• High-Assurance EID: Term used to distinguish EID’s assigned to faculty, staff, and officially enrolled students from those who have limited access to UT systems for specific circumstances (parents, students enrolled in certification courses, etc.)
• Home Department: When referring to faculty, this term is usually used to distinguish the department under which said faculty member will be subject to official faculty reviews. When referring to a course, this term is usually used to identify the department responsible for scheduling, assigning faculty, and managing CIS.
• HR Partner/Executive: Designations within the HR Spectrum. These designations grant special privileges to faculty and staff members allowing them access to confidential Human Resources information.
• Individual Instruction: A designation for a course, usually used for courses in which an instructor provides one-on-one instruction, or courses with only one student enrolled in total.
• Instructor of Record: The instructor that the Office of the Registrar has authorized to submit grades for a class.
• Official UT Academic Department: An academic department as determined for the CIS system by the Office of Institutional Research, Reporting and Information Systems (IRRIS).
• Organized Course: Term used to distinguish courses with standard meeting times/schedules, taught using a standardized curriculum, and the many non-standardized courses used to provide academic documentation (Individual Instruction, Internships, etc.)
• Parent/Child (Unique Number) Relationship: A system for grouping unique numbers together to indicate course relationships. If a single course has multiple Unique ID’s associated with it, a single Unique ID will be designated as the “Parent” Unique ID, and all survey requests assigned to it will reflect on all associated courses.
• Provisional Results: A set of results distributed before the results are officially certified to allow the instructors access to student feedback before the start of the next semester to improve their teaching.
• Survey Preferences: #CONTENT
• Unique ID: A 5-digit identification number assigned during Course Scheduling to distinguish courses and sections from each other. Despite what might seem implied by their name, Unique ID’s are repeated from year-to-year, and must be combined with an instructor EID or Course ID to provide a truly unique identifier.
