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.