About SET

Important note: SET has been revised and changes have been implemented since Quarters 3 and Semester 2, 2023. See the updated guidelines here.

Updated March 2024. 

SET refers to 'SET Course and Teaching Evaluations, where the acronym stands for 'Summative Evaluation Tool'.

SET is the University's centrally-implemented system for summative, online, student course and teaching evaluation. It is designed to facilitate student feedback on learning and teaching for students, teachers and academic managers.

Students have the opportunity to provide feedback through SET on eligible courses and teachers at the University each time a course is offered.

Visit the SET evaluation periods page for current details.

In SET, teaching and course evaluations are administered simultaneously using standard questionnaires for courses and teaching.

Read the SET-related policies and guidelines.

Courses

All eligible undergraduate and postgraduate taught courses are to be evaluated each time a course is offered.  Concurrently-taught/cross-listed courses are automatically considered as separate courses when applying SET eligibility filters, questionnaires and student emails. Courses that meet ALL of the following criteria are SET-eligible and will be automatically included in SET for course evaluation:

• Primary Graded Component (PGC) is one of: LEC, LAB, SEM, STU, TUT, ONL, TBL and
• Not PBRF-eligible and
• Catalogue number does not end with A/U/V/X/Y and
• At least 10 enrolled students, based on actual enrolment number up until the faculty-change deadline.

Find more information, see Primary Graded Components (PGC).

Note: If a course has 5 or more enrolments, Qualtrics can be used to seek student feedback. See the SET Qualtrics template

Teachers

All eligible teachers associated with a course are to be evaluated each time a course is offered.  For each SET-eligible course, relevant academic staff members that meet the following criteria will be included in SET for teaching evaluation:

• Has a 'Teacher' role on Canvas for the course (for data extraction).
• Meets either of the following conditions
  • Has one of the following permanent or fixed-term roles: professor, associate professor, senior lecturer, lecturer, senior research fellow, research fellow, professional teaching fellow, senior tutor, OR
  • Is employed on a contract basis with a significant teaching role.  The final decision on a contract teacher's eligibility rests with the Associate Dean with responsibility for learning and teaching, in consultation with the Academic Head.

Tutors, Graduate Teaching Assistants and honorary and adjunct roles are not eligible for set.  For more information on course and teacher eligibility see SET FAQs.

To view a full list of current SET-eligible courses and teaching staff see SET Course & Teacher Eligibility Dashboard (University staff only)

Note: The SET questionnaire has changed from Q3, S2 2023 onwards.

The SET questionnaire is organised by course. Each course's SET questionnaire has two sections: Course Evaluation, and Teaching Evaluation. The Teaching Evaluation section will only display if the course has at least one teacher to be evaluated.

Students will first see and answer the Course Evaluation questions, followed by a Teacher Selection page where they select the teachers to evaluate from a list of to-be-evaluated Canvas teacher names and University profile photos.

The Teaching Evaluation section contains a separate set of identical teaching evaluation questions for each selected teacher.

Supplementary or optional questions are not available. There are no longer separate questionnaires for the evaluation of postgraduate, clinical, or general education courses.
Onshore and online student groups answer the same SET questions.

Here is a sample of the latest SET questionnaire to be used from Q3, S2 2023.

Both the SET course and teaching evaluation sections consist of two question types: rating and open-ended.

The rating questions are mandatory. The responses follow a 5-point Likert Scale with corresponding numerical values in the parentheses: (0) Not Applicable, (1) Strongly disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Neutral, (4) Agree, (5) Strongly agree.

The open-ended questions are optional and ask for students' feedback as text input.

(Mandatory) 5-point rating question

1. Overall, I was satisfied with the quality of this course.

(Optional) Open-ended questions

1. Overall, what aspects of the course were most helpful for your learning?
2. Overall, what did you find most challenging about learning in this course, and do you have any suggestions for improvements?

(Mandatory) 5-point rating question

1.  Overall, [teacher name]'s teaching was effective.

(Optional) Open-ended questions

1.  What was it about [teacher name]'s teaching, that you found most helpful for your learning?
2.  What suggestions do you have that would enhance [teacher name]'s teaching?

Many of the common questions staff have about SET are answered on the SET FAQs page. 

If your question is not addressed on that page, each faculty has nominated contacts that can help you with other SET evaluation questions.  See SET Contacts page.

For further information you may contact the central Evaluations Coordinator at quality@auckland.ac.nz.