LVE FAQs

Leuphana University represents quality in teaching and research, applied by its many committed employees. A representative, university-wide feedback culture is both required and makes sense in order to meet the standards of good quality management.

The Evaluation Rules published by the Senate and the Quality Standards relating to lecturers record LVE as a key component of teaching at Leuphana University. Therefore, the Evaluation Rules obligate each and every lecturer to evaluate at least one course in each university year (every course according to the Quality Standards). Find out more here. For students, participation in LVE is voluntary. 

By responsibly involving students in the reflection process to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a course, lecturers receive support in improving the teaching offer. Lecturers must hold an extensive, in-person discussion with students as part of a course meeting in order to use the results sustainably and to good effect, e.g. based on the EDI presentation template (cf. LVE Rules). Lecturers are also encouraged to voluntarily publish the results on myStudy (e.g. as a poster or results report) as this demonstrates their interest and motivation to maintain a dialogue with students and as such to support the further development of teaching at Leuphana University.  

LVE registrations are possible in myStudy  via Lecturers and Course. One option provided is for feedback results to be emailed out to students or to be made available on myStudy automatically (on the Course website, Lecturer profile site or on the date of a specific meeting).

You can register in myStudy on the Course site.

• Go to “Edit information” to find the link: “Register your course for evaluation here.”
• Fill in your contact details if you are the person registering the course, and on entering evaluation data and selecting the preferred questionnaire (basic module plus addition modules if applicable), the course will be registered.
• To receive the survey documents on time, please make sure to register at least 5 days before your chosen evaluation date.

Yes, you can correct your details if data collection has not yet started and the questionnaires have not yet been sent out. Simply run through the registration process again. 

During this phase, you can also deregister from the evaluation. This is done via the Evaluation Account. 

(myStudy → Admin → Evaluation Account)

The questionnaire is based on the course structure. The basic module contains 19 item relating to the following aspects:

• Overall learning and teaching success
• Transparency of course objectives
• Communication and motivation
• Respect vs. discrimination
• Lecturer contribution
• Student contribution
• Course structure
• Interaction and involvement
• Assumed preliminary knowledge
• Workload
• Open questions (praise/room for improvement)

The following add-on modules can be added to the basic module:
- a module designed by the lecturer
- two fixed modules: "Interdisciplinarity" and "Relevance to practice and application" 

You can see sample questionnaires here.

It takes between 7 and up to 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The Teaching Evaluation team at Leuphana recommends handing out the questionnaire to students at a course meeting and to collect the questionnaires again later on at the same meeting. Please schedule additional 10-15 minutes for this feedback.

The meeting at which the planned evaluation is to take place should be at least three (for paper evaluation) or five (for online evaluation) weeks before the end of the teaching period to ensure that the results can be processed, evaluated and discussed during the teaching period.  

You should discuss the key results of the evaluation with your students during the next meeting.  Please free up a further 10-15 minutes for this feedback discussion. The Teaching Evaluation team at Leuphana can provide you with a presentation template in PowerPoint format to help you with this - EiD-Evaluation in Discussion. After the data have been evaluated, this will be emailed to you together with a detailed results report and a brief results poster. The EDi contains the key results as well as further suggestions for discussions.

General tips:

• Carry out the LVE in the middle of a course so that students can benefit from the evaluation (formative evaluation)
• announce the LVE in advance  and combine it with a meeting on another interesting subject (e.g. guest lecture, announcement of exam topics)
• communicate your interest in the students, the learning process and student perceptions
• signal the benefits of the feedback and related (self-)reflection meeting
• tell the students how they can view the results (e.g. automatic feedback options chosen during registration or in your Evaluation Account)
• discuss the results with the students or inform them of your conclusions by email
• tell students at the start of the semester/course what you learnt during the last semester which you will apply during this semester

Tip for online LVE:

• Carry out the LVE during a course meeting: all you need is mobile devices and the emails containing the student access details as well as 10 minutes of your time

PLEASE NOTE - Remember that it is and will remain voluntary for students to participate in the LVE (cf. Evaluation Rules). In other words, you will be in breach of the rules if you make LVE participation dependent on other conditions, e.g. assessment.

The completed questionnaires are scanned in, anonymised and saved as data records in a database. Only the lecturers themselves can view the prepared results as an individual  results report, the EiD presentation template and a poster. 

The employees of the  Leuphana Teaching Evaluation project are obligated to maintain data protection and treat all evaluation data as confidential. Since the 2009/10 winter semester, we have been collaborating with Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena to technically implement the Teaching Evaluation project. The relevant employees of Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena are also obligated to maintain data protection. 

The Teaching Evaluation team at Leuphana recommends that you should discuss the results with your students and send your students excerpts of the results, e.g. by publishing key findings in myStudy.

Where possible, the original wording of open answers is shown (incl. correction of spelling/orthographical errors). 

Comments should generally be anonymous, constructive, matter-of-fact and respectful. Any irrelevant contents, contents not relating to the course and any insults are removed. Where names or references are used which allow individuals to be identified, these are rewritten to protect anonymity. 

Any comments which are repeated either verbatim or using similar phrases will be shown only once in the report stating the number of mentions. 

If more than 50 questionnaires are submitted, or if there are a high number of comments, answers are categorised. 

Aggregated results reports generally only contain categorised comments.

Students as well as lecturers can use standardised questionnaires across all subjects to record their impressions of a specific course. The results of the LVE provide feedback for lecturers regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their course design and teaching behaviour. The aim is to encourage and support discussions between lecturers and learners based on the course evaluations in order to ensure long-term course quality and to develop courses further through dialogue.

At the end of each semester, aggregated results reports are compiled at Leuphana for all degree programmes and areas - assuming a sufficient number of courses have been evaluated and this has yielded results. These are then made available to participants of the Quality Circle (QC) in myStudy before implementation. During the QCs, the most important results of the surveys (including degree completion and alumni surveys) and the student statistics might be presented and discussed.

Once the results have been prepared, a results report is emailed to you alongside a presentation template (EiD) and poster. 

You can access your Evaluation Account via myStudy: This is where you can find the results reports, presentation templates and posters for all courses evaluated by you. 

(myStudy → Admin → Evaluation Account)

Since the 2016/17 winter semester, students can use myStudy to submit an anonymous request to evaluate a course by pressing the “I-want-an-LVE” button. Once more than 10% of participants have activated this link, you as the lecturers responsible are automatically sent a system message informing you of the request. But it is your decision as the lecturer whether or not to evaluate a course.