Course Evaluations and Surveys (CES) offers a fully-hosted online course evaluation and survey system designed to streamline the entire student feedback process for our campus. These directions are for Course Evaluations and Surveys Admins (departmental secretaries, chairs, and deans) to manage CES Projects.

In CES, Surveys refer to the evaluation questions. Projects refer to the semester course evaluation deployments (Response Periods in Blackboard Enterprise Surveys). The Main surveys will be created by the Institutional Effectiveness and Planning Office who will also import all of the semester courses into the project and set the deployment dates and email settings for the students and instructors.  

Target Surveys are School, Department or Program-level surveys that can be deployed to ALL courses of a hierarchy level, i.e. SNSS, or with a specific course code(s), i.e. PSY, Approved Target Surveys will also be deployed automatically by Institutional Effectiveness and Planning each semester.

A prior service request to set up or change an existing Target Survey must be made a minimum of one month prior to the actual deployment date. Service requests can be made much earlier (recommended). Service requests for deployment, general questions, and support can be made at the Information Technology (IT) Self-Service Portal by a departmental representative (or by a dean for the whole school).

Custom Question Surveys (optional) - Course Evaluations and Surveys (CES)

Create Custom Question Surveys

Accessing CES

• Login via Blackboard: https://buffalostate.open.suny.edu (or find the link under “Toolbox” on the MYBUFFSTATE page).
• Locate the CES module on the Blackboard landing page.

There is an option for departments to add additional questions to the main survey. This is accomplished by adding a Custom Question Survey. This must be done by the department prior to the Project deployment date. You do not have to create a new Custom Question Survey every semester. You can re-use a previously created Custom Question Survey by attaching it to a project.  You can create multiple Custom Question Surveys so that different courses receive a different set of additional questions specific to them. Click Custom Questions Survey tab in the banner of your Course Evaluations and Surveys landing page.

• You will see a list of previously created surveys with options to preview, copy, or edit. Click on the number under Projects to see a list of the main projects that this custom survey is associated with. If you have previously created a Custom Question Survey and you would like to re-use it for another Project, go to the Attach Custom Question Survey section below.

• To create a NEW Custom Question Survey, Click + Create New Custom Question Survey and enter a title. 

Matrix Question

• Select Matrix Question Type to group all of your questions into one question set. Click + Add.

• You also have the option to add individual Question Types such as Single Selection for every question in your Survey. There are options to include a Not Applicable (N/A) choice and a Comments section for that particular question. Keep the Likert Scale consistent for each question. At Buffalo State, the highest number should go first and correspond to a positive rating.  *In order to change the order of numbers to start with the highest number, you must select the “Reverse Code Response Options” before saving your question:

• In Question Text area, type the text of the question that will prompt students (for example: For the following statements, please indicate the response closest to your view for the course taught by [InstructorName]).
  • To pipe in data about each course, place the cursor in the Question Text area where you would like the info to automatically appear, then Click Course Evaluations and Surveys Placeholders to select the info. You will want to have Course Evaluations and Surveys automatically add such things as the instructor's name in case there is a team-taught course.

• Scroll to the Item Choices textbox. Delete the default choices listed. Type in the individual item statements making sure you press the Enter on the keyboard after each line (except the very last line). 

• In Response Options, delete the default choices. Type in the statements or Likert Scale you would like to use (for example, Strongly Agree, Agree...). Make sure you press the Enter on the keyboard after each line (except the very last line). 
  • Start with the most positive response.
  • Select Reverse Code Response Options to start with the highest number. 
  • Select Required (if students MUST answer the question)
  • Enable for team-taught courses if appropriate

• It is most important is to make sure that the most positive Response Option equals the highest Numeric Weight and decreases in value with each corresponding Response Option. Numeric Weights are used to get an overall score for each question.
• Note that some questions should not have a Numeric Weighting. Questions that ask how many hours were spent on a particular item, what the expected grade is, etc. You don't need an overall average score, you only need a count of how many responses. 

• Click Save.

• Your created survey question will display. There are options to edit, delete, or copy a question. Copying a question will copy over all the settings and can be a time-saver. All you would need to do is modify the question text and responses.

Additional question Types

• You can also add additional questions by selecting another question type (such as Single Select, Numeric Selection, Write-in Response, etc.) and click + Add.
  • You may want to unselect the Required option for Write-in (open ended text response) Question Types.
• Use Placeholders where appropriate.
• Click Preview to view your Survey.

Attach Custom Question Survey to a Project

You do not have to create a new Custom Question Survey every semester. You can re-use a previously created Custom Question Survey by attaching it to a new project each semester.

• From the Home screen, under the Custom Questions module click the desired Project.

• Click + Add Custom Question Survey. This process will add these additional questions to the main Project survey.

Click the check mark next to the set of questions you would like to add (Click Preview icon to review the survey and verify it is the correct survey. Close the Preview). Then, Click “Select Courses.” Note that it may appear that nothing has been selected but it has. You may see tiny dots around the checkmark under Select.

• After a slight pause, you will be taken to a new area. Click the Select Specific Courses tab and then click Add Courses.

• You can search for a course by typing in the Code field. This will filter the course list to only display what matches the search criteria. You can type​​ a partial course name (ENT), prefix (099), both (ent099), or CRN (1975) in the Code field.
• Click the Course Code header label to sort the course list in ascending or descending order.

• Drag the scrollbar to view all of the courses. There may be multiple pages so FIRST change the Records per page (50) to a higher number.
• Select the desired courses or select all (left of Course Code) and click Add Selected Courses.
• If you do not see a course listed, it is not a part of the main Project and cannot receive additional questions.
• Click OK in the pop-up window.

• You will see your Custom Question Survey that you have added to the main Project. Click on the number under Courses to view the list of courses receiving the additional questions.
• You can also Edit or Delete your Custom Survey.

View Attached Custom Surveys

• If you would like to see a list of your surveys and the Projects that they are attached to, click the Custom Question Surveys header tab. You can click on the number under Projects column. You also have the option to Preview, Copy, Edit, Delete, or Lock the survey.

• Click Attach Surveys to Projects if you would like to see a list of Projects with the number of courses receiving the additional questions. Click the number under Added to # Courses to view the list of courses.
• You can also view the last day that you will be able to make changes under the Access Until column.