The Harvard Q Guide, often referred to simply as “the Q,” is the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) course evaluation system. It plays a crucial role in gathering student feedback to enhance teaching and learning experiences across Harvard University. Conducted at the end of each fall and spring semester, the Harvard Q Guide provides valuable insights into course quality and instructor effectiveness.
All FAS courses with an enrollment of five or more students are required to undergo evaluation through the Harvard Q Guide. This ensures comprehensive feedback across a wide range of academic disciplines and course types within Harvard. The evaluation period is strategically timed, opening during the final week of classes and remaining accessible until after the final exam period concludes, but crucially, before final grades are officially released.
A unique feature linked to the Harvard Q Guide is “early grade release.” Students who complete all of their course evaluations gain the advantage of accessing their submitted grades earlier than the general grade release date. This system incentivizes student participation in the Harvard Q Guide, maximizing feedback collection. It’s important to note that students cannot evaluate a course after viewing their final grade on my.harvard, ensuring unbiased feedback. Similarly, instructors are prevented from viewing course evaluation results until they have submitted their final grades for the course, maintaining fairness and objectivity in the process.
The Harvard Q Guide evaluation form includes a standardized set of questions designed to assess various aspects of the course and the instructor’s teaching. These standard questions cover key areas relevant to the student learning experience. Furthermore, instructors have the flexibility to personalize their evaluations by adding up to three additional questions of their own. This customization allows instructors to gather feedback on specific aspects of their teaching or course design that are of particular interest to them.
Evaluation results from the Harvard Q Guide are made available to instructors shortly after the evaluation period closes, providing them with timely feedback to inform their teaching practices. Beyond instructors, a subset of Harvard Q Guide results are accessible to anyone with a valid Harvard University ID (HUID). This publicly available data includes:
- Aggregated summaries of all numeric responses, presenting the distribution, average, and median scores for each quantitative question.
- Verbatim student responses to the open-ended question: “What would you like to tell future students about this course?” This qualitative feedback offers prospective students valuable peer insights into the course.
However, in accordance with FAS policy, evaluation results for instructional staff whose primary role at Harvard is “student” are not made publicly available to the broader HUID community. This policy applies to instructional staff who are currently enrolled as either undergraduate or graduate students, ensuring privacy and appropriate use of evaluation data.
Since the spring semester of 2019, Harvard FAS has utilized Explorance Blue as its course evaluation platform for the Harvard Q Guide. This platform provides a user-friendly and efficient system for administering evaluations and delivering results, streamlining the feedback process for both students and instructors.
By participating in and utilizing the Harvard Q Guide, the Harvard community contributes to a continuous cycle of improvement in teaching and learning, ensuring the highest quality educational experience for all students.
