SERT: Software Tool for Generating Student Engagement Reports

Drawing on our previous work on survey and reporting tools that compare faculty expectations with what students report experiencing in class, this paper presents details of a new assessment procedure applied at the University of Nevada, Reno and describes the software created to support this procedure. In order to identify discrepancies between what instructors and what students perceive is happening in the class, help evaluate the course curriculum, and close the assessment loop, detailed questionnaires were developed for faculty and students and two types of reports were generated: a survey-look-alike report and a quadrant analysis report. To automate data collection and reporting, the SERT software was created, as no other existing assessment software allows direct comparison of faculty and student responses. Details of this software, which significantly reduces the processing time of survey data, are provided in the paper in terms of database design, software specification, and user interface details