• Fall 2021: Task force recommends replacing ICES platform and proposes initial new survey based on faculty input and student focus groups.
• 2022-2024: Task force and CITL identify requirements for ICES online replacement and contract with Explorance Blue to administer the new survey. Continued iteration on initial survey design with faculty feedback and student focus groups.
• Fall 2024: Contract with Explorance Blue finalized. Initial draft of FLEX piloted with student focus groups administration in 30 courses.
• Spring 2025: Onboarding with Explorance Blue. Second draft of FLEX survey piloted with student focus groups and administration in 100 courses.

FLEX will have nine core Likert scale ratings for feedback, four questions about students’ engagement, and three open-ended questions for students’ comments.

Questions about course design

1. The instructor clearly described learning objectives for the course.
2. The activities and materials provided to support my learning were closely aligned with the graded assignments/assessments of learning.
3. Based on the course description, I gained the knowledge/skills that I expected to gain from participating in this course. 

Questions about course delivery

1. I received useful feedback on my performance in this course.
2. I felt that there was sufficient instructor support to achieve the course learning goals.
3. There were plenty of opportunities (i.e., activities, assignments, projects) to practice and apply the knowledge/skills learned in this course.

Questions about whether the course was inclusive and ethical

1. Assignments were graded in alignment with rubrics/assignment descriptions.
2. I knew where to look for course materials when I needed them.
3. The instructor facilitated a welcoming classroom environment.

Questions about course engagement

1. Adding together both time spent in class and time spent out of class, what was the average number of hours per week you spent on this course?
2. About what percentage of classes or recordings of classes did you attend or view?
3. Did you take this course to fulfill a general education requirement?
4. What requirement did this course fulfill for your degree?

Open-ended items

1. What aspects of the course design and/or delivery most benefitted your learning?
2. What change to the course design or delivery would most benefit your learning?
3. What recommendations would you give to future students of this course?

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 during the transition. See also below, “Is ICES being retired immediately?”

The new scales focus on attributes of the student learning experience that students can validly rate such as their learning experience. FLEX will not ask students to rate the overall quality of a course or the overall effectiveness of the instructor as students are not well positioned to rate all aspects of teaching such as the quality or appropriateness of a course’s learning objectives.

FLEX aims to reduce bias by removing rate-the-overall-quality ratings and replacing them with items that follow best practices for reducing bias. Survey items will focus on specific aspects of excellent teaching along with specific criteria to guide the rating.

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.

While ICES will be 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.

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

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 help an instructor’s mentor recommend areas of improvement to an instructor. FLEX results should not be used as a stand-alone evaluation of teaching.

A campus task force is being formed by the provost to recommend other potential uses for FLEX results such as providing summaries of student ratings to students during registration.

You will no longer receive emails from ICES at the end of the semester to provide your end-of-semester feedback but will instead receive emails from Explorance Blue and possibly notifications through Canvas.

In general, you will fill out a separate FLEX survey for every course you take. There will be a few exceptions such as independent studies, research courses, and courses in units that have elected to use other sources of student feedback.

All students are strongly encouraged to complete the FLEX survey for each class they take that administers the survey. A campus task force will explore whether our campus will provide incentives for students who complete FLEX surveys.

A provost’s task force will explore best practices and recommendations for whether/how to make FLEX results available to students.

The Illinois Student Council (ISC) is allowed to add a few items to the FLEX survey that they would then be free to make available to students. ISC has not yet created these items.

Graduate teaching assistants who were eligible to administer ICES will also be eligible to administer FLEX. TAs will be able to elect to receive the global ICES items for a couple more years like faculty if they wish to keep those items.

Because most TAs have minimal control over course design, we will explore providing only the “well-delivered” and “inclusive and ethical” scales to TAs in these roles.

All courses/instructors that were eligible to receive ICES ratings will still be eligible to receive FLEX ratings. Just as with ICES, CITL will work with the Registrar’s Office and units to automatically initiate the process for creating a FLEX survey for each eligible course/instructor. As with ICES, instructors and units will have the opportunity to opt out of a FLEX survey, though instructors and units will then be expected to systematically collect student feedback on their own for teaching feedback and evaluation.

Initially, instructors and units will be able to elect to add only the ICES global items to FLEX. A continuing task force will develop new elective items that units can use to construct “departmental core” item sets for their units.

Units will need to develop and share their policies for how FLEX (and possibly ICES) data will be used in teaching evaluations.

The transition to the new platform (Blue) and survey (FLEX) is being overseen by a provost’s task force in consultation with representatives from tenure-track and specialized faculty across disciplines. The task force has engaged stakeholders including faculty senate subcommittees (e.g., General University Policy, Education Policy, IT), Illinois Student Council, and CITL. CITL is executing the transition to Blue.

CITL will automatically schedule a FLEX survey on Explorance Blue for all eligible courses. By default, the set of eligible courses excludes Independent Study (IND) sections, Research (RES) sections, internship and study abroad sections without a classroom component, and sections consisting only of a series of speakers . Please contact CITL at citl-info@illinois.edu if a FLEX survey has not been scheduled for your course when it should have been.

Only individuals regularly interacting with all of the students registered in a section in a teaching capacity are eligible to have students complete FLEX questionnaires. Those who are only grading, staffing office hours, or providing other forms of administrative support are not eligible.

A FLEX survey will be scheduled in the Blue system for any instructor who has greater than 0% responsibility for a course (as listed in Banner). Your departmental scheduler is responsible for ensuring this information is accurate in Banner.

Instructors should follow the procedures for collecting student feedback established by their academic units. While all units are required to collect and use student feedback as part of broader teaching evaluation processes, the FLEX system may not be appropriate for some instructors or some units.

It is not mandatory for students to participate in FLEX surveys. A provost’s task force is being charged to explore mechanisms to encourage higher student participation or whether to make it mandatory.

We expect that instructors will be able to see the percentage of students that have completed the FLEX survey.

Because FLEX does not have global items asking students to rate instructors or courses as excellent, the “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent” will be renamed. Likewise, because FLEX will have three composite-scale scores, the award criteria will be revised. This revised program will maintain the spirit of the list: awarded to as many instructors as meet the award criteria. The name and award criteria will be determined by the Illinois Student Council in consultation with the Office of the Provost and CITL. Illinois Student Council will be responsible for announcing and publicizing the revised list because we believe that an award based on student feedback should be awarded by the students. We plan to announce the criteria and name for the award before the start of the Fall 2025 semester.

Instructors and their unit executive officers will by default have access to FLEX results. A provost’s task force is being charged to address questions such as whether should students have access to some type of access to FLEX results (i.e., raw or summary data) and whether access to FLEX results can be used as an incentive to boost response rates to FLEX (a practice some peer institutions have used to boost response rates over 70%). The task force will submit recommendations to the provost, and more announcements will follow about access to the FLEX data.

FLEX was developed following evidence-based practices for survey design. The scales for the survey were chosen to align with the campus definition of teaching excellence. Initial survey items were drafted and circulated for faculty feedback for importance and applicability. An initial set of items were selected based on faculty feedback. These items were taken to student focus groups to refine their wording to improve students’ comprehension of the items. In parallel, we ran two pilot administrations of the survey in over 100 courses over fall 2024 and spring 2025. Pilot administrations took place in over 100 courses across 30 units spanning ACES, AHS, BUS, EDUC, ENG, FAA, LAS, CIMED, SSW, and LER.

Psychometric evaluations of these pilot administrations were evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These factor analyses demonstrated strong model fit and strong factor loadings for the three-scale structure. Course-design items were found to have low loading across factors. Inclusive and ethical items were found to have cross loadings with other factors, which is appropriate given that students will experience a course as inclusive and ethical through the design and delivery of the course.

The final set of items were chosen to optimize for the items identified by the survey development team as best aligning with the definition of teaching excellence while collectively having strong psychometric properties.

CITL will administer the Explorance Blue system. Explorance Blue is a feedback analytics and insights platform that streamlines collection and analysis of surveys. Learn more about Blue.

Explorance Blue is the software that best satisfies our campus’ requirements for access control, security, FEPA compliance, and that best accommodates the variety of our course models and structure.

The university will share instructor’s name, NetID, title/role (e.g., TA vs. faculty), and UIN; course information (e.g., CRN, subject code, course number, course title, section identifier); course registration (e.g., students’ NetID, class status); and other university staff contact information such as unit executive officers’ name, NetID, and UIN and their designees. This data will be stored by Explorance on their servers in Montreal, Quebec, CA.

All courses/instructors that were eligible to receive ICES ratings will still be eligible to receive FLEX ratings. Just as with ICES, CITL will work with the Registrar’s Office and units to automatically initiate the process for creating a FLEX survey for each eligible course/instructor. As with ICES, instructors and units will have the opportunity to opt out of a FLEX survey, though instructors and units will then be expected to systematically collect student feedback on their own for teaching feedback and evaluation.

Initially, instructors and units will be able to elect to add only the ICES global items to FLEX. A continuing task force will develop new elective items that units can use to construct “departmental core” item sets for their units.

Units will need to develop and share their policies for how FLEX (and possibly ICES) data will be used in teaching evaluations.

The transition to the new platform (Blue) and survey (FLEX) is being overseen by a provost’s task force in consultation with representatives from tenure-track and specialized faculty across disciplines. The task force has engaged stakeholders including faculty senate subcommittees (e.g., General University Policy, Education Policy, IT), Illinois Student Council, and CITL. CITL is executing the transition to Blue.

Instructors should follow the procedures for collecting student feedback established by their academic units. While all units are required to collect and use student feedback as part of broader teaching evaluation processes, the FLEX system may not be appropriate for some instructors or some units.

It is not mandatory for students to participate in FLEX surveys. A provost’s task force is being charged to explore mechanisms to encourage higher student participation or whether to make it mandatory.

Because FLEX does not have global items asking students to rate instructors or courses as excellent, the “List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent” will be renamed. Likewise, because FLEX will have three composite-scale scores, the award criteria will be revised. This revised program will maintain the spirit of the list: awarded to as many instructors as meet the award criteria. The name and award criteria will be determined by the Illinois Student Council in consultation with the Office of the Provost and CITL. Illinois Student Council will be responsible for announcing and publicizing the revised list because we believe that an award based on student feedback should be awarded by the students. We plan to announce the criteria and name for the award before the start of the Fall 2025 semester.

Instructors and their unit executive officers will by default have access to FLEX results. A provost’s task force is being charged to address questions such as whether should students have access to some type of access to FLEX results (i.e., raw or summary data) and whether access to FLEX results can be used as an incentive to boost response rates to FLEX (a practice some peer institutions have used to boost response rates over 70%). The task force will submit recommendations to the provost, and more announcements will follow about access to the FLEX data.

FLEX was developed following evidence-based practices for survey design. The scales for the survey were chosen to align with the campus definition of teaching excellence. Initial survey items were drafted and circulated for faculty feedback for importance and applicability. An initial set of items were selected based on faculty feedback. These items were taken to student focus groups to refine their wording to improve students’ comprehension of the items. In parallel, we ran two pilot administrations of the survey in over 100 courses over fall 2024 and spring 2025. Pilot administrations took place in over 100 courses across 30 units spanning ACES, AHS, BUS, EDUC, ENG, FAA, LAS, CIMED, SSW, and LER.

Psychometric evaluations of these pilot administrations were evaluated using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. These factor analyses demonstrated strong model fit and strong factor loadings for the three-scale structure. Course-design items were found to have low loading across factors. Inclusive and ethical items were found to have cross loadings with other factors, which is appropriate given that students will experience a course as inclusive and ethical through the design and delivery of the course.

The final set of items were chosen to optimize for the items identified by the survey development team as best aligning with the definition of teaching excellence while collectively having strong psychometric properties.

CITL will administer the Explorance Blue system. Explorance Blue is a feedback analytics and insights platform that streamlines collection and analysis of surveys. Learn more about Blue.

Explorance Blue is the software that best satisfies our campus’ requirements for access control, security, FEPA compliance, and that best accommodates the variety of our course models and structure.

The university will share instructor’s name, NetID, title/role (e.g., TA vs. faculty), and UIN; course information (e.g., CRN, subject code, course number, course title, section identifier); course registration (e.g., students’ NetID, class status); and other university staff contact information such as unit executive officers’ name, NetID, and UIN and their designees. This data will be stored by Explorance on their servers in Montreal, Quebec, CA.