Note  - This only covers the most basic steps to creating a rotation survey. Contact Support to learn about the advanced features available.

  • Go to the Survey Menu - Survey List.
  • Click the New Rotation Survey at the top or bottom of the screen:
  • Give the survey a name for the term you are evaluating.
  • Select the assessment focus:
    • Students will assess Faculty - This survey focus can be a summative or formative course/faculty evaluation.
    • Faculty will assess Students - This survey focus can be summative or formative evaluation where a faculty member may assess a student's performance.
    • Students will assess other Students - This survey focus can be any type of peer assessment within working groups or rotations.
    • Faculty will assess other Faculty - This survey focus can be any type of peer assessment within working groups.
    • Students will assess themselves - This survey focus can be any type of self-assessment.
    • Faculty will assess themselves - This survey focus can be any type of self-assessment.


  • Select the program of study, if applicable.
  • Select the assessment period of the courses from the Period drop down.
  • Pick a Copy Settings option:
    • Do not copy settings – The survey will be created from scratch.
    • Copy settings from a template – The survey will be copied from a central template that contains all of the survey settings.
    • Copy settings from survey – The survey will be an exact copy of the survey selected.
  • Click Add.

Note: For surveys copied from templates or surveys, skip to the step for selecting courses.

  • Click on ‘Select Q’s’ (It is the only icon that appears at this point.)
    • Choose the Question Category(s) where the questions exist.
    • Select questions from the Question Category that are to appear on the survey.
  • Change the order of the questions as necessary under ‘Set Order’
  • In ‘Display Options’ add a survey introduction, a survey close, select questions where an answer will be required, and choose questions to show on the Survey Intelligence report.
  • In ‘Results Access’ select who will have access to the results and when.
  • Click the ‘Select Courses’ icon. This screen pre-selects the courses that were imported with the assessment period that the survey is in.
  • Click on ‘Select Blocks’ to set the survey start and end dates for each block.
    • Select the teaching sites that will be active for each block in the survey.
    • Click ‘Save.’
  • Click on ‘Detailed settings’ and verify that all of the courses are correctly listed. Also check that the students and faculty are correctly assigned. Make sure to preview the survey to look for any layout or editing issues.
  • Go ‘Back to list’ and click on the survey name to set the automatic open and close date/time.
  • Set the Rotation Deadline Option, if students can finish their surveys after the black date expires.
    • The auto open date should be set to the start date of the first block.
    • The auto close date should be set to the last day of the last block.
    • The auto release date is the date that faculty and chairs can have access to the data.
    • The confirmation option should always be checked, so the Course Evaluations Manager receives a notification that the automated processes occurred.
  • The relative to blocks feature allows the survey to open and close based on the block dates.  For example, the block ends on January 8th and the survey should open 7 days before the end of the rotation and close 7 days after the block end.  The relative to option would be set to open the survey for the block on January 1st and close it on January 13th.
  • Enable Send Proof allows students to send faculty a proof of completion e-mail.
  • Determine Block Categories/Organization: 
    • How will participants be organized?
    • Participants and those being assessed will be organized by Teaching Site for each Block.
    • Participants and those being assessed will be organized by Small Group. 
    • Select the number of small groups from the drop-down menu.

Note: This option is set up in the Detailed Settings screen.


Important Note: This option will only appear when 'people based' type questions are on the survey. 

  • Assessee/Participant Grouping: This option is based on whether the CE Manager knows which people each participant worked with during the assessment period and whether he/she has the time to manually select participant groups for each person being evaluated.
    • I want to allow participants to choose the people with whom they worked. 
      • This option allows the manager to go into the detailed settings, participant selection and pick the students for each block/site combination.
    • I will specify exactly who each participant worked with during the evaluation period. 
      • This option allows the manager to go into the detailed settings, Assessee-Participant Grouping (icon looks like an organizational chart) and manually assign who will evaluate whom. 

Important Note:  Each participant MUST be assigned to an evaluator on the detailed settings page, or the survey will not be available to the participants. 


Note: If the CE Manager does not have the time or information to set up the assessments at this level of detail, it is highly recommended that the first option be chosen.


Important Note: This option will only appear when 'people based' type questions are on the survey. 

  • Determining Survey Completion - These options are used by Course Evaluations to determine survey completion in cases where a single course occurs across multiple sites during the same block and a student has been assigned to complete an evaluation of more than one of these sites.
    • This will be the case if the CE Manager doesn't know where students enrolled in a course worked during a particular block and all enrolled students are selected as participants at each site.  If this is the case, the CE Manager should select the first option, 'If a course occurs at more than one teaching site during the same block, enrolled students are only required to evaluate one of these sites.'  This allows students to be able to choose the site at which they worked prior to viewing the evaluation form.  After the student has completed an evaluation for one site for the same course/block, Course Evaluations will consider them to be finished evaluating that section and will remove it from their list of incomplete surveys.
    • If the CE Manager knows where each student worked for every course being assessed and plans on setting up the survey at this level of detail, he/she can select the second option, 'Students are required to complete all assigned evaluations, even if they have been assigned to evaluate more than one site for the same course and block.'  In this case, students will not be given an opportunity to choose the teaching site at which they worked and will be required to complete all assigned evaluations.
  • Rotation Auto-check - Automatically checks all assessed individuals for People based-type questions on rotation surveys.  By default, individuals are not checked to be assessed for rotation surveys. This option enables administrators to select which students are at which sites for specific blocks.
  • Participation Incentives allow the manager to create a giveaway opt in for students to win something for submitting their surveys.

Common Issues

  • Assessee/Participant Grouping can only be used when people based type questions are added to the survey form.
  • If a student is assigned to take only one rotation for a course when many are available,  the system will allow them to choose which teaching site they took the course at before they take the survey.

Related Articles

Creating a Rotation Survey - Overview