CORRECTION APPENDED

Harvard students who just can’t wait 10 days after exams to see their grades might soon have a powerful incentive to fill out course evaluations.

The Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) considered a proposal yesterday that would allow students to see their grades within one day of submitting all course evaluations. Since CUE forms went online in 2005, administrators and student leaders have sent e-mails urging undergraduates to fill them out in order to keep response rates high.

Barry Kane, who is registrar of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), said at yesterday’s meeting that his office might be able to implement the change as soon as this spring.

“There are some developmental, programming issues but we will be exploring the situation to see if it will be possible for May,” Kane said.

Faculty and students at the meeting were supportive of this change, and students in particular pushed to expedite technical adjustments in order to accommodate this change.

CUE also considered a proposal to place all student responses to course evaluations online, but this idea drew more debate.

Meeting participants were generally supportive of posting 10 to 15 selected responses online, but some students argued that every response—not just a selected few—should be visible.

Some faculty members at the meeting felt regulation was necessary. But Tom D. Hadfield ’08, an Eliot House representatives on the Undergraduate Council (UC), said that complete transparency was necessary.

“Students should be able to post reviews of classes without professors censoring them,” Hadfield said. “Students must not compromise. All class reviews should be published online, whether professors like them or not.”

UC President Ryan A. Petersen ’08 also spoke in support of posting all CUE responses online.

Meeting participants were also supportive of proposals to make CUE evaluations mandatory for classes with five or more students and to extend the deadline for submitting evaluations until after exam period.

UC representatives at yesterday’s meeting gave a presentation on the Harvard College Book Information System (HCBIS), which would serve as a central repository for course material ISBN information in order to help students find the cheapest ways to get textbooks and sourcepack readings.

“With this system, students would be able to save a total of $1.5 million annually off the current price of new books,” said Michael R. Ragalie ’08, a UC representative who presented the proposal. [CORRECTION APPENDED]

The UC voted in late February to support HCBIS. While faculty members supported the goals of the system, they were wary of how the COOP and libraries would figure into it.

“We don’t want to be setting up a polarity with the COOP,” said Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71. “I like the direction of the new system, but all the parties in the system have to get together, sit down, and come up with a proposal.”

Hadfield said after the meeting that the UC plans to move forward with the project with or without College backing.

—Staff writer Marie C. Kodama can be reached at mckodama@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION:

The March 15 article "CUE Vets Faster Grades" gave an incorrect class year for Michael R. Ragalie '09.