Faculty Resources

Peer Evaluation Policy

Purpose and Scope

The primary purpose of the peer evaluation process is to assess the extent to which all WOST pre-fixed and cross-listed courses meet the goals of the program. Because those undergoing the peer evaluation process are new either to women’s studies or to a particular course, the process is also designed to give instructors the opportunity to receive helpful, formative feedback.

Peer evaluations will be conducted for those teaching WOST pre-fixed or cross-listed courses that meet one of the following conditions:

• The course is being taught by an instructor who has not previously taught for WOST; in this case, the course will be reviewed for the first two semesters that it is taught by this instructor.
• The course is being taught by an instructor who has previously taught for WOST but has not previously taught this particular course; in this case, the course will be reviewed only for the first semester that it is taught by this instructor.
• The course does not meet either of the first two conditions, but a course review is requested by the WOST Director.
• The course does not meet either of the first two conditions, but a course review is requested by the instructor.

Components of the Peer Evaluation

The peer evaluation will be based on the following components:

• the course syllabus and any other assignments the instructor might wish to provide
• a classroom visitation

Criteria for Evaluating

In assessing the instructor and course, the evaluator should pay particular attention to how well the course meets the goals of the Women’s Studies Program. These goals are as follows: 

• Analyze academic disciplines from a feminist and antiracist perspective.
• Encourage original scholarship and research about women that takes into consideration gender, race, class, and sexual orientation.
• Integrate self-exploration with academic skills.
• Provide a non-authoritarian learning environment which values students’ ideas and encourages an open exchange of information and opinion.
• Promote an individual and critical approach to learning.
• Promote knowledge of the diversity of women’s experiences. 

In addition to these goals, instructors may have goals of their own. As part of a formative feedback loop, the evaluator should feel free to discuss with the instructor issues, questions, and concerns that do not fall within the scope of the goals listed above. However, everyone should keep in mind that the primary purpose of the review is to assess how well a course meets the goals of the WOST Program.

Timetable and Process for Appointing Peer Evaluators

At the first Program Committee of the semester, the Director of Women’s Studies will distribute a list of instructors who meet the criteria for review. Volunteers from the Program Committee will be assigned one or more instructors to review. Faculty and LTLs with at least two years of teaching experience can serve as evaluators. Untenured faculty may choose not to evaluate faculty with a higher rank, just as LTLs may choose not to evaluate tenured and tenure-track faculty. During semesters where the number of reviews required is high or when there isn’t enough tenured faculty to conduct the reviews of other tenured faculty, the Director may request additional volunteers from the list of WOST Affiliated Faculty.

 The Final Report

No later than four weeks after the close of the semester, evaluators will submit a report to the Director that summarizes the extent to which the goals above have been met and addresses any areas where there was room for improving the course. The report should be submitted electronically to the Director using the report template available on the WOST website. At this time, the Director will review the report together with the student evaluations and instructor self-evaluations. The Director will then send the report onto the instructor, along with any comments or concerns she might have about the course. The evaluations will be shared with instructors and filed in the Women’s Studies office.

In addition, instructors may request a separate, more general review of the course from their evaluators for the purposes of reappointment and tenure and promotion portfolios. Such arrangements should be worked out between the instructor and evaluator.

Guidelines for Peer Evaluators

Class Visitations

The peer evaluator should initiate contact with the instructor once the Director has informed her or him about the upcoming evaluation. The evaluator should work with the instructor to find a day for the class visit convenient to both; in selecting a date for a visit, both parties should keep in mind the goal of the evaluation: namely, to assess the course in relation to the WOST Program goals.

Evaluators are asked when possible to structure their visits according to the following best practice recommendations from CELT: 

• Evaluators should arrange a pre-observation meeting with the instructor. During this meeting, the evaluator and instructor can discuss the purpose of the review, the WOST Program goals, the instructor’s individual goals, the progress of the course thus far, etc.

• Evaluators should follow-up their class visit with a second meeting that takes place as soon after the observation as possible. At this stage, evaluators can invite the instructor’s own impressions of the class, provide feedback, and offer constructive suggestions.

For more advice on conducting class visitations, please see the CELT Peer Review Handbook.

 Course Syllabi

Because so many of our courses originate from outside the Women’s Studies Program, the syllabus is an important vehicle by which students become acquainted with the goals of the Program and the nature of a WOST cross-listed course. For this reason, it’s critical that the goals be an explicit component of course syllabi. In reviewing course syllabi, evaluators should look to see that they include the following: 

• information that identifies the course as a Women’s Studies cross-listed course (for courses that are non-WOST-prefixed course)
• a list of the Women’s Studies Program goals that the course aims to meet

 Women's Studies Peer Evaluation Policy

All instructors should received a copy of the IPFW Student Handbook. The handbook is made available by IPSGA and can be requested through its office, the Helmke Library Circulation Desk, and the Follet's bookstore. Please take a few moments to review the handbook for information about policies that may affect your course and students. The following WOST provides you with policies specifice to the Women's Studies Program and highlights several IPFW policies that you will most likely need to reference at some point in your teaching.

General Policies

Class Cancellations

If you know in advance that you will need to miss a class meeting, you should do your best to arrange for someone to fill in for you or provide your students with an out of class assignment. Beside a guest instructor, you could consider inviting Career Services to host one of their "Don't Cancel Class Program" sessions on career planning. You may also consider showing one of the many educational films available through the WOST library or Helmke library. Many of these are included in our DVD list located in the Resources section of this guide. The WOST office would be happy to screen the film for your class if needed. Feel free to use this last option when you are faced with a last minute cancellation that cannot be avoided. We will do our best to help on short notice.

Final Exams

Many campuses have what students refer to as "dead week" and IPFW is no exception. Many students often have misconceptions about what dead week is, however. At IPFW, it simply means that exams cannot be scheduled for the week preceding final exams. In addition, IPFW's policy on final exams states that everyone (with only a few particular exceptions not relevant to either W210 or W225) is expected to meet for the two-hour session scheduled during exam week. This session can be used for a final exam, submission of an out-of class assignment, or as a regular class meeting.

Academic Honesty

Please refer to the detailed policy outlined.

Policies Regarding Course Material and Syllabi

All women’s studies course syllabi must include the following:

• The WOST program goals (also available at http://new.ipfw.edu/womens-studies/)
  -To analyze academic disciplines from a feminist and anti-racist perspective
  -To encourage original scholarship and research about women that takes into consideration, gender, race, class, age and sexual orientation
  -To integrate self-exploration with academic skills
  -To provide a non-authoritative learning environment which values students' ideas and encourages an open exchange of information and opinion
  -To promote an individual and critical approach to learning
  -To promote knowledge of the diversity of women's experiences

• Your office hours and contact information, including office phone and email

• Provide a statement in your syllabus requesting that students inform you of any special needs to ensure that those needs are met in a timely manner. If possible, this statement should be read aloud to the class to assure those students with print disabilities hear the information:

"If you have a disability and need assistance, special arrangements can be made to accommodate most needs. Contact the Office for Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD). They are located in Walb Student Union, room 113, telephone number 481-6657, as soon as possible to work out the details. Once the Director has provided you with a letter attesting to your needs for modification, bring the letter to me. For more information, please visit the web site for SSD."

• Clearly stated policies about late and missing work, attendance, academic dishonesty and plagiarism, and any other policies that might be particular to your class

• Information on grading, including your grade scale and the weight given to each graded component of the class

Additional Policies Specific to Cross-Referenced Courses Taught by Other Departments

• In addition to the WOST Program Goals listed above, all cross-referenced WOST course should include information that identifies the course as a Women’s Studies cross-referenced course, preferably in the course description itself or below the course title.

Additional Policies Specific to WOST W210

• All sections of WOST W210 are expected to use Women's Voices, Feminist Visions as the primary text to ensure coverage of key ideas foundational to future WOST courses. However, instructors are welcome to supplement the textbook with additional texts. Sample assignments

Campus Resources

DVD's / Videos available at Helmke Library

WOST Program Policy on Academic Honesty

Overview and Definitions

Two of the principal goals of the Women’s Studies Program are to encourage the open exchange of ideas among our students and their instructors and to provide opportunities for students to produce their own scholarship and research on gender issues. To achieve these goals, students must develop and demonstrate an appreciation for the standard of academic honesty. For this and other reasons, the Women’s Studies Programs views academic dishonesty to be a serious offense against academic principles and a violation of professional standards of conduct. We believe instructors have among their responsibilities the job of fostering students’ knowledge about what constitutes academic dishonesty. We also encourage our instructors to provide students with the skills necessary to avoid acts of unintentional academic dishonesty. However, ultimately it is the student who is responsible for knowing how and doing what is necessary to avoid academic misconduct.

Academic dishonesty can include, but is not limited to, the following: sharing information during an exam; using notes and cheatsheets during an exam when prohibited by the instructor; fabricating or falsifying data or other information; turning in someone else's work as one’s own; buying a paper and submitting it as one’s own; paraphrasing ideas or borrowing words from other sources without appropriately documenting and citing the source, and so on.

Within Women’s Studies courses, the most common form of academic dishonesty is plagiarism within essays. Students have plagiarized when they:

• Borrow or buy a paper from another person or an online source and submit it as a your own
• Incorporate ideas from another person’s work, published or unpublished, in print or online, without properly citing the source
• Use the structure or organization of ideas from another person’s work, published or unpublished, in print or online, without properly citing the source
• Cut and paste or retype passages or phrases from another person’s work, published or unpublished, in print or online, without properly citing the source
• Inappropriately summarize a source by substituting synonyms for the source’s original words or by  simply rearranging the word order of the source
• Fail to place quotation marks around any words, phrases, or sentences taken from a source
• Fail to include acknowledgments and citations that attribute words, phrases, sentences, or ideas to their original source

What the IPFW Bulletin Has to Say about Academic Honesty and Misconduct /i>

The following is the IPFW policy on academic honesty, as detailed in the IPFW Bulletin and Student Handbook:

Policy