FAQ Teaching Evaluation

We have summarized answers to some of the most frequently asked questions here for you. The FAQ will be expanded as needed. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.

Evaluation takes place in December or June of each year and is open for three weeks. Students will receive a personalized invitation including a tan bound hyperlink to the questionnaire to their OVGU email address and up to two reminders. In addition, the survey links are also available via OVGU's elearning portal (moodle) during the survey period.
In order to identify the courses to be evaluated according to the evaluation plan, the LSF is used. If requested by the faculties, the evaluation will be carried out on a module-by-module basis.

The following information is mandatory for the execution of the evaluation:

  • Name of the lecturer
  • Name of the course
    • If applicable, type of course (lecture/exercise/seminar/laboratory)
    • If applicable, affiliation to other courses (module)
    • If applicable, different course period (e.g. for block courses after the evaluation period)
  • Mail addresses of the participating students (via document function in LSF)
    • Corresponding elearning course for identification/comparison of participating students

If this information is missing or incomplete, the faculty (Faculty Quality Manager) will be asked to supply this data.
For the identification of the participating students, a procedure of up to three steps is carried out:

  1. Identification via LSF ("Belegfunktion")
    % If necessary, comparison with participants of the corresponding elearning course; for this purpose, the hyperlink to the course stored in the LSF is used.
  2. If there are no participants in the LSF, but a corresponding Elearning course with participants, the data from the Elearning course will be used.
  3. If there are no participants in the LSF or in the Elearning course, the faculty/teacher will be asked to provide this information.
    % Email addresses can also be forwarded proactively by the teacher via the website form.


The LSF record is prepared for faculty and then sent for review/re-registration. It may happen, for example, that e-mail addresses or names are missing from the data sets available to us, or that there are no lists of participants. In these cases, we need the assistance of the lecturers or faculty quality managers to collect the correct data and enter it into the system.

By a pre-determined deadline, all data should be correct or reported back. From this date, manual creation and programming of the evaluation will begin. The courses are entered into the evasys evaluation software according to the LSF data records (which may have been corrected by FQBs or lecturers), if applicalbe, secondary lecturers are added and the lists of participants are also imported. The evaluation period and also the automated participation reminders (up to two) are scheduled.

The lecturers are informed about the start of the course evaluation via automated e-mail. Students will receive the personalized link for participation to their OVGU email address. In addition, the survey links will also be available via OVGU's elearning portal (moodle) during the survey period.

Starting with the winter semester 2022/23, OVGU will introduce a survey cycle. Only courses of two to three faculties will be evaluated per semester. In addition, interested lecturers can apply for an unregular evaluation and will be given the opportunity to submit their own questions via the evaluationform by a specified deadline. The questions will be added to the questionnaire by K33 when the surveys are created. This allows us to make a valuable contribution to the individualization of the evaluation and also reduces the survey density among students.

Following the evaluation, the data is processed (manually adding faculty comparison lines to the individual course profile line) and sent to instructors within a week.

Lecturers receive their individual or module evaluations immediately after the end of the survey period (1-2 business days later) via E-Mail. The automated reports consist of   

  • Indicator overview
  • Evaluation of the quantitative individual questions
  • individual and comparative profile lines
  • Evaluation of the qualitative open questions as well as
  • Presentation template based on indicators

The indicators are derived from the single question groups and represent a thematic summary, which only has an overview character.

The individual, course-related profile line is compared with up to three profile lines, including the comparison lines of the entire faculty.

The individual evaluations are also sent to the Dean of Studies of the faculty, who is responsible for ensuring and developing the quality of teaching and learning in the faculty. He:she also receives an aggregate evaluation of the faculty, which can be viewed within the faculty.

We will be happy to provide you with further aggregated evaluations, e.g. at degree program level, upon request.

All courses of each faculty are surveyed every three semesters. The statutes for the assurance and development of quality in teaching and learning provide for a survey at least every two years (§9 para. 3). Upon justified request of the students to the respective dean of studies or faculty quality manager, surveys can also be conducted outside the survey cycle. In addition, teachers can request an evaluation at any time via the evaluationform, e.g. to evaluate new formats or if the evaluation is obligatory for their further qualification.

The survey period is scheduled so that an evaluation of the results by the lecturer in the course is possible in the last three weeks of the course. Typically, course evaluations take place in June or December of each year. Please note: FWW and FME have established their own procedures.

The schedule refers to the courses that are held by lecturers of the respective faculty. The allocation of students attending the course to a different faculty is not relevant (e.g. in the case of teaching exports).Evaluationsturnus OVGU

Personal data of the respondents are only evaluated if the threshold of 5 or 10 participants in the survey is exceeded (see regulations of the respective faculties). Below this threshold, the evaluations are adjusted for the personal data (e.g., gender, degree program, semester of study of the respondents) or no evaluation takes place (SPRZ, FMA). The gender of the respondents is not listed in the result reports of the individual courses, but is collected for aggregated evaluations (covering several courses).

Moreover, the voting data is not stored in connection with the respondents' email address used for sending the personalized survey links.

The survey data is stored on servers of the OVGU using survey software (evasys). Only a small group of people in the university administration (less than 5 people) have access to these. The procedure is documented accordingly in the university's procedure directory.

By default, the tan-linked online procedure is carried out. Respondents receive a one-to-one randomly generated TAN per survey by e-mail, which is embedded in a URL. In the case of several surveys being conducted at the same time, respondents receive one e-mail with several survey links. This procedure ensures that respondents can only participate in the survey once; participation by unauthorized third parties is not possible. The vote is not stored in connection with the TAN or e-mail address.

The surveys can also be reached via the OVGU E-Learning portal (moodle) in the evaluation period, if it is used by the lecturers for course administration. This ist not mandatory. The plug-in view in the e-learning portal uses the e-mail address (of both lecturers and students) as identifier. There is no direct comparison with the data in Moodle (e.g. course enrollment). Moodle serves only as a viewing medium, not as an interface.

The OVGU uses a standardized master questionnaire, which can be supplemented by the faculties with their own questions, e.g. related to the type of course. From winter semester 2022/23, it will also be possible for teachers to add up to three closed scale questions and two open free text questions using the evaluationform. K33 supports the development of questions. Templates can be found in the question library.

Using a master questionnaire also allows us to create aggregated evaluations across courses/modules, e.g., at the study program level. It also makes the results more comparable.

The legislator stipulates that the surveys must be differentiated according to gender (§7 para. 2 HSG-LSA).

By querying structural data (study program/subject semester/etc.), it is also possible to look at results at the degree program or faculty level. This follows the holistic approach of the OVGU's quality development system.

The respondents can always switch between the German and the English view.

In accordance with the Higher Education Act, data in non-anonymized form (lecturer-related) is deleted after three years or one semester after the individual whose course was evaluated has left the university.

Aggregated, non-personal, data at the course, faculty, or university level are archived.

The department Quality Assurance - K33 offers central services for the whole university in the context of surveys. This includes the administration of the evaluation software (evasys) as well as the support of the servers and the implementation of the evaluation for the responsible faculties.

Due to the partly deviating study procedures, the Faculty of Medicine has anchored deviating evaluation procedures. The contact person for the evaluation is the evaluation officer of the faculty, Dr. Katrin Werwick. At the Faculty of Economic Sciences an independent evaluation portal has been established, for further information please refer to: Eval.uni.

In addition, we advise on questionnaire design and conduct individual surveys as well as evaluations - as far as capacities allow. Please do not hesitate to contact us!

Last Modification: 23.07.2024 - Contact Person: