LEARNING & TEACHING

We place a high value on the opinions of students and have a tradition of innovative methods of gathering student feedback to facilitate the improvement of learning and teaching. The current Course and Teaching Evaluation and Improvement (CATEI) Process in place at UNSW draws on strengths of previous systems, beginning with those created by the Educational Testing Centre.

Foreseeing a need for evaluation services based on machine-readable documents, the University established the Educational Testing Centre (ETC) in 1967. In its early years the work of the ETC was primarily related to supporting examination processes and providing feedback services to staff and students. In 1974 the ETC installed a high-volume optical mark reader which enabled rapid document-scanning for users both within UNSW and the wider community.

The CATEI Process builds on the innovations of previous evaluation systems. Earlier methods of evaluation succeeded in generating sound data, although the 2001 UNSW Student Survey indicated that there were weaknesses in these methods. The 2001 Survey demonstrated that in some instances the evaluation process failed to produce improvements to learning and teaching in response to student feedback.

The CATEI Process recently implemented at UNSW ensures that explicit mechanisms exist for using student feedback constructively to improve the quality of learning and teaching. The new process also makes certain that teaching effectiveness and good practice is recognised, fostered and documented.

For more information please refer to the [[http://www.learningandteaching.unsw.edu.au/content/LT/evaluation/catei.cfm?ss=2||CATEI section of the Learning and Teaching @ UNSW website.

In 2006 UNSW reviewed its CATEI delivery methodology and introduced the newly developed "CATEI online" system. Staff were also given the option of using the old paper based approach. This resulted in two incompatible databases of results for 2006, and hence it was not possible to develop comprehensive faculty summaries.

In 2007 CATEI is completely delivered using the new "CATEI online" system.