In Spring semester, the Office of Academic Affairs once again extended the deadline for students to complete evaluations for their courses by one week because of low participation. Course evaluations began on June 1, originally due on June 12, but continued till June 19.

At the UOS, students who do not complete course evaluations by the deadline cannot check their grades. They might have a shorter period to consult professors about their grades. Nevertheless, only about 60 percent of UOS students participated in course evaluations before the first deadline. As the Office of Academic Affairs extended the evaluation period, more students turned out to participate: 88.4 percent in total. The administration said that this result was still low, particularly in consideration of the disadvantages that the students might have.
Ran-ju So, an official in the Office of Academic Affairs, said, “The purpose of course evaluation is to provide better classes to the UOS students. Therefore, evaluations are a way to protect students’ right to study. That is why we link course evaluations with the checking of grades.”

Some students, however, have found online course evaluations to be difficult due to technical problems. An anonymous freshman who could not participate said that she found the webpage for evaluations was malfunctioning. She thought that it would not be fair if she had some disadvantages because of such an external problem.

By Young-eun Choi