High-Resolution Course Feedback vs IDEA Instruments

High-Resolution Course Feedback (HRCF) is a free web service that gives instructors weekly anonymous student feedback about class mood. Each week it randomly selects students to provide feedback, with the aim of gathering representative responses while reducing survey fatigue. Students receive survey requests in their inboxes through unique links. Four default questions ask what students liked, what remains confusing, what the teaching team should know, and for a course experience rating on a five-point scale. Instructors can add questions for topics they want to address that week. Surveys open Monday at noon PT, reminders go out Thursday at noon PT, and the instructor digest arrives Sunday at 4pm PT. The digest includes participation rates, responses grouped by question with visualizations, and a graph showing class mood over time. HRCF says it does not track which student submitted which feedback. To get started, users create an account with an institutional email, submit a course survey form, and send a school profile page and generated course ID for review. A roster, custom questions, and admin list can be prepared while approval is pending.

IDEA Instruments are course-feedback surveys delivered through Anthology Evaluate for higher education. They provide formative suggestions for improving instruction and summative feedback for faculty evaluation, with attention to student learning. Diagnostic Feedback has 40 questions about learning objectives, teaching methods, and overall impressions. Learning Essentials has 18 questions summarizing progress on relevant objectives and course impressions. Teaching Essentials has 12 questions about teaching methods associated with instructor and course excellence. A separate six-question Feedback tool gathers student input during a semester. Diagnostic Feedback and Teaching Essentials adjust specified ratings for preparation, motivation, work habits, course difficulty, and class size, while reports show raw averages too. Faculty receive customized reports and improvement resources. Students access surveys through their campus Anthology portal. Evaluate supports LTI launches, Blackboard integrations, browser access, accessibility features, anonymous feedback, benchmarking, advanced reporting, and data export. Pricing is available on request.