SRCC Questions
1. The Student Ratings of Course Content (SRCC) questions
The revised student ratings of course content (SRCC) questions were approved by senate and the board and are now included on the SLEQ forms for this term. The SRCC questions are collected confidentially with the aim of identifying the levels of content that address equity and inclusion in Dalhousie course curriculums for educational and nonpunitive purposes. The SRCC responses will be visible solely to course instructors. The questions are presented as a series of statements about course content to which the students are asked the degree to which they agree or disagree using a 5-point Likert scale (1 – strongly disagree, 2 – disagree, 3 – neutral, 4 – agree, and 5 – strongly agree) with a No Answer (N/A) option, are listed below.
1. Course materials and instructional resources reflected a variety of diverse perspectives on the course topic(s).
2. The instructor did not include materials that contained offensive or discriminatory ideas except to educate students about discrimination, oppression, or other existing perspectives.
These course content questions were created by the Dalhousie Student Union. The purpose of these questions is to give students an opportunity to identify racist, sexist, homophobic, and any other oppressive content1 in course curricula and literature and share that feedback with their professors. These questions will also support course instructors in developing innovative curricula to support diversity, developing cross-cultural competencies, and fostering safer spaces by identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses in existing course content. Making course content changes will be solely at the discretion of the course instructor.
In addition, the following questions will be asked about course content as part of the SRCC:
A. What are one or more specific things about the course content that helped create an inclusive learning environment?
B. What are one or more specific things about the course content that could be improved to create a more inclusive learning environment?
All students will be instructed that the SRCC comments will not be used for tenure and promotion. Deans, Department Heads, and Chairs of Faculty Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity (EDI) committees will receive anonymized aggregate data for quantitative questions 1-2 for their academic unit. Open-ended questions will not be shared with anyone other than the course instructor. The intention is that recipients of the data can use it to inform faculty and departmental EDI initiatives, education, and conversations.
2. Release of SRCC results.
The SLEQ Administrator shall release the SRCC results subsequent to receiving all SLEQ data, including those courses that fall outside of the regular SLEQ schedule, as follows:
a. Deans, Department Heads will receive anonymized aggregate data for quantitative questions 1 and 2 for their Academic Unit.
b. Chairs of Faculty Equity, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) committees will receive anonymized aggregate data for quantitative questions 1 and 2 via the Vice-Provost Equity and Inclusion (VPEI) who will send this data for each respective academic unit (in this case Faculties) to each Chair. The SLEQ Administrator will provide the data to the VPEI.
c. The Chair of the Pan University EDI Committee (Curriculum, Teaching & Learning) will receive anonymized aggregate data for quantitative questions 1 and 2 for all academic units (in this case Faculties). The SLEQ Administrator will provide that data to the Chair.