You are viewing an old version of this page. View the current version.

Compare with Current View Page History

« Previous Version 71 Next »

What is AEFIS?

AEFIS  (Assessment, Evaluation, Feedback & Intervention System) is an assessment management platform (created by AEFIS LLC) that  supports individual student assessment, facilitates curriculum review, and streamlines campus-wide accreditation processes.  UW-Madison has entered into a multi-year partnership with AEFIS LLC to provide a campus-wide digital course evaluation survey tool, which is part of a suite of digital learning assessment tools.

The Wisconsin School of Business primarily uses it for  creating, distributing, and managing digital course evaluation surveys.

Training and Support

AEFIS training is provided for free by DoIT's Academic Technology group. Their website provides a list of upcoming training opportunities. You can also be notified of training opportunities, updates to the platform, and planned outages by joining the AEFIS Users Group.

Support is handled internally by emailing Academic Affairs Help .  They may reach out to Teaching and Learning (WSB) or Learn@UW-Madison (DoIT Academic Technology) for additional support depending on the nature of the request or issue.

Overview of the Course Evaluation Process

The course evaluation process at the Wisconsin School of Business is a partnership between the Academic Planners (who can be reached by emailing Academic Affairs Help) and  Teaching and Learning Support . The Academic Planners are responsible for scheduling and assigning end of semester course evaluations that are required for all instructors and used as part of an instructor’s performance review. Teaching and Learning Support provides technical assistance to the Academic Planners when requested and is responsible for generating the official course evaluation results.

Process overview:

  • Between early to mid semester the Academic Planners begin scheduling and assigning end of term course evaluations
    • By default all instructors are assigned to the course evaluation. An instructor who is listed only as the supervisory instructor will be present but marked as excluded by default. More information on instructor roles can be found on the Registrar's website.

  • Course evaluations are sent to students between weeks five and seven for full term courses in Fall and Spring. Summer term course evaluations are sent one week before the last day of class.
    • Courses that are not full term are handled differently based on program and department. Start and end dates of the sessions within terms can be found on the Registrar's website.

  • Instructors will receive an email notification three days before evaluations become available to students. 
    • This is an opportunity for instructors to verify that they have been correctly assigned to courses and sections. Once evaluations are opened to students no changes can be made.
    • Instructors should communicate to students that the course evaluation process will occur in class at a planned future date and that a device (smartphone, tablet, laptop) is required on that date. It is important that the evaluation be conducted during class time, typically devoting 10 - 15 minutes to the process. This is a best practice to capture the highest yield rates.

  • Once the survey is open, students receive an email directing them to AEFIS to complete the survey. Students can also access AEFIS through their Student Center.

  • The evaluation is live for one or two weeks, depending on the length of the course.  If a student is absent for the class period when evaluations were completed, the student will receive a reminder email every 3 - 4 days either until they complete it or the course evaluation period is over.

  • Instructors will get an email from the AEFIS with instructions for accessing evaluation results approximately two weeks after grades have posted.

  • Once course evaluations are closed Teaching and Learning Support will begin the process of extracting data from AEFIS to be processed into the official course evaluation results. Once the reports have been completed they are reviewed by Senior Associate Dean for Academic Programs before decimated down to Department Chairs and instructors.

Frequently Asked Questions


Here are some steps that can improve overall response rate provided by Office of the Provost.

  • Give students time (10-15 minutes) to complete the digital evaluation during class (just as they do with printed, paper evaluations).
  • Encourage students to complete the evaluation by discussing its purpose and importance in the weeks leading up to it.
    • If students know that you will read their feedback and seriously consider changes based on their feedback, they will be more likely to complete the evaluation.
  • Share how you have incorporated past feedback into your courses.
  • Ask students to provide feedback about their own learning relative to the course’s learning outcomes

Note that WSB instructors shall not award bonus points or use any other incentive for students to complete the evaluation.

No, paper copies are no longer available and all course evaluations are provided through AEFIS.
Yes, early-term and mid-term evaluations are encouraged and can be created by emailing Academic Affairs Help.

A PDF of the official AEFIS course evaluation is available here, AEFIS - WSB Official Course Evaluations.pdf.

The survey WSB Official Course Evaluations, as it is named in AEFIS, It was last modified on January 24, 2019.

You can log in to AEFIS to see the results of the course evaluations on the day after grades are due. AEFIS will provide insights on all responses including open ended questions.

The official course evaluation results are available through the Teaching and Learning website and clicking on Course Evaluations in the top menu. The timeline for processing course evaluations into official results is varied, but is normally completed before the start of the next full term.

Older course evaluations can be viewed from the Wisconsin School of Business Library.

The primary difference between the AEFIS and the official course evaluations is the calculations of S1 (Scale 1) and S2 (Scale 2).  The scales are referred to as Metrics within AEFIS and have three constraints that make imprecise.

  1. All questions within a Metric must have a Weight
  2. The Weights only support two decimal places
  3. The Weights must add up to 100

Those constraints mean that AEFIS is unable to apply an equal weight to each question of each scale; one question has to be weighted slightly more to add up to 100.

Example: AEFIS calculates S1 (the average of twelve questions) like this 8.37 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33  + 8.33 + 8.33 + 8.33 = 100. The first question is weighted more  to make the numbers sum to 100.

The other difference is that AEFIS does not calculate the Top 10% and Top 30% as a Metric, because AEFIS only supports up to two Metrics.

Note that answers to open ended questions are only available within AEIFS.

Digital Measures stores the following data for each course section taught:

  • Term/Year

  • Course (Subject, Course Number, Section Number)

  • Course Title 

  • Course Description 

  • Course Hours (Calculated by the mode of course hours by section)

  • Scale 1

  • Scale 2

  • Top 10%

  • Top 30%

Additional Resources

  • No labels