Â鶹AV

Your feedback matters.

Instructors use your responses to improve teaching and course design.

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Course evaluations are open!

Fall 2024 deadlines:

  • December 4 (condensed evaluation period)
  • December 21 (default evaluation period)

Find out which period your unit uses.

Â鶹AV.CA / Mercury / Students

Information for students

Speak up!

You have both the right and the responsibility to provide feedback to instructors and administrators. By completing your Mercury course evaluations, you can help improve courses and teaching at Â鶹AV.

The more students who fill out course evaluations, the more seriously the feedback is taken by both instructors and administrators.

Why should I complete my course evaluations? Do they actually make a difference?

  1. Your feedback helps instructors improve their teaching through constructive criticism and feedback.

  2. Course evaluations provide information to future students about courses and instructors. View previous numerical course evaluation results. Your participation helps make more course evaluation results available!

  3. You have the opportunity to evaluate your Teaching Assistants as well, helping them improve their teaching as they begin their careers.

  4. Department Chairs and Directors have full access to the results, including the comments (only after grades are submitted and approved). The results are reviewed by instructors and administrators each term.

  5. Information from end-of-course evaluations is considered when evaluating professors’ teaching for purposes of merit, reappointment, tenure and promotion.

Did you know?

  • Your course evaluation responses are completely anonymous. The results become available to instructors and academic unit heads only after final grades have been submitted.

  • Course evaluations are only conducted if there are five (5) or more students enrolled. This is to protect your anonymity.

  • You can complete your course evaluations on a mobile device and through myCourses.

Other Resources

What can I do if I made a mistake while completing my evaluation or I want to modify my submission?

Please complete if you would like to change or delete your course evaluation submission. Note that if the course evaluation period has ended, it is not possible to change or delete your submission.

How is Mercury different from RateMyProf and other third-party evaluation platforms?

  • Mercury, unlike RateMyProf and other third-party evaluation platforms, ensures that each person who submits a course evaluation is actually enrolled in the course.
  • One of the attractions of third-party evaluation platforms such as RateMyProf is the comments. However, these comments are not necessarily reliable, as anyone can post on these platforms whether they took the course or not.
  • Instructors and Department Chairs read your feedback and take it seriously when you submit through Mercury. Since comments on third-party platforms are unreliable, your feedback will likely not be taken into account.
Why should you use the Mercury system instead?
  • Instructors often make tangible changes to their courses based on your feedback.
  • Did you know that previous numerical course evaluation results are available for you to view? When enough students respond and an instructor has not objected to access, these results are available in Minerva. You can use this information when deciding which courses to take.
  • Your participation in course evaluations is key to making more results available for students to view. , you are both actively improving Â鶹AV’s learning environment and making more information accessible to other students.

What happens if a student leaves hateful or discriminatory comments on a course evaluation?

Comments that are determined to be hateful or discriminatory on the basis of gender, sexual identity, race, ethnicity or religion call into question the individual's ability to fairly assess an instructor's teaching. Thus, the entire response can be deleted from the evaluation results. These comments are antithetical to the principles of equity and inclusivity. They are further unhelpful to an instructor in reviewing and improving their own teaching abilities and strategies, or to that instructor's unit head in supporting their pedagogical development.

Any instructor who receives comments that they believe to meet the characteristics described above may contact the angela.campbell [at] mcgill.ca (Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) (AP (EAP))) to disclose the matter, which shall be treated in confidence. The AP (EAP) and the SSMU Equity Commissioner will assess the anonymized remarks to determine whether these merit deletion of the response. If this is found to be the case, the response in its entirety (numerical responses and comments) will be deleted from the evaluation.

This request can be made at any time and for any Mercury evaluations received during an instructor's time at Â鶹AV.

While this web page is accessible worldwide, Â鶹AV is on land which has served and continues to serve as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. Teaching and Learning Services acknowledges and thanks the diverse Indigenous peoples whose footsteps mark this territory on which peoples of the world now gather. This land acknowledgement is shared as a starting point to provide context for further learning and action.

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