Sample Life of an Evaluation Task

The following illustrates a "day in the life" of an evaluation task. Each step taken in the Evaluation Tracker workflow is illustrated.

Creating the Evaluation Task

The first step in creating an evaluation task is finding the course needing review. 

In this example, a transfer student took PHIL 101 Introduction to Philosophy from Coastal Carolina University.

• Using the Course Finder, we look up Coastal Carolina University, select a data set, select the Philosophy department, and view the Introduction to Philosophy course description.
  • We see that there are no current equivalencies and that the course has not been evaluated before.
• To send the course for review, we select the footprint icon ("Create evaluation for all courses below"). 

• In this example, we are going to just send the course for review without proposing an equivalency.
• We select Preview.

• We assign the task to our Philosophy evaluator, Rene Descartes.
  • We ensure the Send email alert? checkbox is checked, as we want the evaluator to receive notification of the evaluation task.
  • We then proceed to upload a course outline as a PDF. 
• We select Create Evaluation Task to assign the evaluation to Professor Descartes.

• The evaluation task has now been sent. 

Evaluating the Course for Transfer

• Professor Descartes logs in to TES®.
• He lands right in his My Evaluations queue (because he set that up in his User Preferences).
  • See User Preferences: Change Password and Set Home Page ("A Specialized Case: The Faculty Evaluator") for setup.
• Clicking on the Select an Institution arrow next to Coastal Carolina University brings Professor Descartes into the list of pending evaluations.

• Within his queue is an evaluation task for PHIL 101 from Coastal Carolina University.
• Selecting the Edit Evaluation arrow opens the evaluation task.

•  You can see from the log that the evaluation task has an attached file and was assigned to Professor Descartes.
  • Clicking the Support files link displays the attached file.

•  Professor Descartes selects Add/Edit Course from the SELECT AN ACTION drop-down.

• The ADD/EDIT COURSE popup appears.
  • Professor Descartes selects the equivalent course from the Philosophy Department in the appropriate data set.
    • Because the TES Administrator at CollegeSource University established PHILOSOPHY as Professor Descartes' Priority Department, this Department is automatically selected from the institution's most recent data set. The Professor will see a listing of all the courses within the Philosophy Department without having to find the department in the drop-down.
      • If Professor Descartes had multiple Priority Departments established, they would appear in an alphabetized list at the top of the department drop-down. The Department whose full name appears first alphabetically would be automatically selected.
    • Since Professor Descartes has the SERVICE EVAL user right he can add or remove EQUIVALENT COURSES. He does not have the MANAGE EVAL user right, so he cannot add or remove TRANSFER COURSES. 
  • The Professor selects the Done button.

• Professor Descartes goes back to the SELECT AN ACTION menu.
  • He selects Approve.
    • If this evaluation needed to be sent to the Dean for further review, Professor Descartes would select Re-Assign from the drop-down.
• If needed, the Professor would enter Notes into that optional field.
• He then selects the appropriate person to route the evaluation back to, now that it's complete. This person is responsible for taking the additional steps needed to complete the evaluation.
  • Users must have SERVICE EVAL and (MANAGE EVAL or CREATE EQ) user rights to appear on the list of eligible recipients.
    • If the evaluation task creator has these rights, they will appear as the first name on the list.
    • If an institution has established a default assignee for externally generated tasks, this person's name will also be a choice - in this example, they would appear as the second name on the list. 
  • The Professor has opted to select the evaluation task creator. However, any user with the appropriate rights could have been selected.  
  •  The Professor keeps the Send Email? box checked, and selects Confirm.

• The Evaluation task will now disappear from Professor Descartes’ queue.

Creating an Equivalency

The evaluation task has been sent back to the evaluation task creator. In this example, the next and final step will be creating an equivalency from the evaluation.

Review the SELECT AN ACTION drop-down menu to see additional actions that can be taken on a completed evaluation task.

• User Rights and Permissions determine what actions a user can both see and select.  

• The person creating the equivalency must have both SERVICE EVAL and CREATE EQ user rights to create equivalencies from evaluations assigned to them. 
  • To create equivalencies from evaluations from the All Open Evaluations queue, they will need SERVICE EVAL, MANAGE EVAL, and CREATE EQ.
  • The Close action simply closes the evaluation task, without creating an equivalency in TES®. A closed evaluation task can be re-opened from the All Closed Evaluations queue.
    • For more information on re-opening a closed evaluation, see Reopening a Closed Evaluation Task. 
• The evaluation task creator selects Create Equivalency and Close.

A window appears in which the following can be entered or selected:

The example below illustrates an example of a Public and Private Note:

• The EVALUATION LOG tracks all of the activity that takes place during the course of the evaluation, from the initiation of the request to the final resolution. 
  • This history is available to review in the All Closed Evaluations queue as well as in the equivalencies themselves for the tasks that resulted in a defined equivalency.
    • Users who have ACCESS EQ or CREATE EQ user rights will also be able to view this information in Equivalency Finder.