Watermark Course Evaluations and Surveys
Course evaluations are administered through Watermark Course Evaluations and Surveys (CES) for all courses on the schedule, regardless of modality. Because Watermark CES integrates directly with Blackboard, both students and faculty should expect a seamless experience in the evaluation process.
All student responses are confidential. For more information about the procedures used to deliver course evaluations, please visit the ‘Course Evaluations Process Information’ section of the eLearning Processes page.
Please email [email protected] with questions or feedback.
Student information can be found on the Submitting Course Evaluations page. Faculty are encouraged to link to this webpage in their courses.
Students will receive an email with links to each of their course’s evaluations when the survey opens. During the evaluation window, students will also see a “pop-up” reminder each time they log into Blackboard. These reminders will disappear once the evaluation is completed by the student or when the feedback window closes.
Reminder emails will also be sent to students who have not yet completed evaluations approximately halfway through the response window.
Note that there is not a way to give students access to course evaluations after they close each term.
Faculty will be able to see completion rates from their courses while the evaluations are open, but instructors can only access anonymous evaluation data only after grades are posted. When results are available, faculty will be notified and be able to access the Watermark portal via Blackboard.
For detailed information on the different report options, please visit the Watermark Instructor Results pages for the most up-to-date information.
The Office of eLearning is migrating historical data from Qualtrics into Watermark through the end of 2026. Please note that student comments will not import into Watermark CES.
Faculty who want to preserve historic student comments or access older course evaluation results can continue to access QClassroom via the information on the Qualtrics Course Evaluations page through the Spring 2027 semester.
The surveys used for the evaluations distributed through Watermark are an exact copy of what had been previously issued, unless adjustments had been requested by the department chair prior to the opening of the evaluation period.
The staff at eLearning worked with each academic unit to create department-specific questions for the course evaluations that were issued from the Enterprise Survey tool used prior to Qualtrics QClassroom (in use fall 2021-fall 2026) to provide surveys to all courses as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For departments not wanting specific questions, eLearning worked with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee during the start of the pandemic to obtain generic questions.