Category: General FAQ

As the university moves toward more holistic feedback and evaluation processes, we have transitioned from the existing Instructor and Course Evaluation system and survey (ICES) to a new software system, Explorance Blue, and a new student feedback survey, Feedback on the Learning Experience (FLEX). This transition was initiated in response to a 2020 report by […]

FLEX results should be used as part of a holistic approach to teaching feedback and evaluation (see the Office of the Provost website for teaching feedback and evaluation for additional information and guidance). For example, a department might combine FLEX results with peer observations of teaching and an instructor’s own reflections on their teaching to […]

FLEX will be administered online through the Explorance Blue platform by the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning.

While ICES was retired at the end of summer 2025, units and instructors will still be able to elect to include the global items from ICES (e.g., rate the overall quality of this course and rate the instructors’ overall teaching effectiveness) alongside the FLEX survey for a few more years to ease the transition. Instructors […]

Explorance Blue is used by many of our peer institutions because it enables integration with Canvas and other software, uses modern web-design practices, allows for more question types, facilitates better security and access control for data, and facilitates better reporting of results to instructors.

FLEX’s nine core items are organized into three rating scales: well-designed, well-delivered, and inclusive and ethical. An average rating per scale (three aggregate ratings) may be used as replacements for ICES’s global item ratings. Units will have the option to continue using ICES’s global item ratings as part of FLEX for the next few years […]

FLEX has nine core Likert scale ratings for feedback, four questions about students’ engagement, and three open-ended questions for students’ comments. Questions about course design Questions about course delivery Questions about whether the course was inclusive and ethical Questions about course engagement Open-ended items