Students may have come across an email from ASUI this semester that gives them the option to click on a link and give their opinion on an issue of importance.
This idea has been enforced so ASUI can accurately represent its constituents, Communications Board Chair Austin Karstetter said. Each week, Karstetter said the Communications Board creates a poll about a current issue and sends it out to UI students. He said some of these polls have included asking student opinions about Medical Amnesty, teachers posting grades to Blackboard Learn and open-source textbooks.
“The purpose is finding out student opinions. Senators do a really good job of going to the living groups, but not always are they as interactive as they could be in getting information out,” Karstetter said. “This is a way students don”t have to say anything or feel uncomfortable, they just go into their email and answer the question of the week.”
This technique has also been beneficial in getting students more interactive on ASUI online platforms, Karstetter said.
“This year we”ve been trying to get more students to use VandalSync,” Karstetter said. “This has been one way we”ve been improving that because in order to answer the questions you have to go log into your VandalSync account.”
Online polls also allow ASUI to obtain feedback from students who live off-campus, Karstetter said. He said there is currently no one representing the off-campus population, which is a majority of the student population. He said online polls gives ASUI the opportunity to see the off-campus population”s opinion on the issues as well.
“I think a lot of people don”t know what ASUI does,” Karstetter said. “This semester we have finally figured out how to get this information out to the students and I think students are finally now realizing what ASUI can do for them.”
ASUI Pro Tempore Rachael Miller said she has also been involved with the online surveys and said she thinks they do a lot of good for the representation of students.
“When you”re elected to ASUI you”re essentially promising to represent the voice of the students and this has been an extremely successful way that we can gauge how students feel about certain issues we”re working on,” Miller said. “It”s also a good way to communicate how students feel about certain policy to upper administration.”
Miller said she is on the ASUI Policy Team and has been working toward the implementation of posting grades on Blackboard Learn. She said she and ASUI President Max Cowan worked together to create a poll asking for student opinions on this topic.
“We get so many comments on the polls and I think that it makes students feel more heard,” Miller said. “Instead of senators just going around to living groups and possibly giving them a biased introduction, students can actually look at the question themselves and answer it for themselves.”
Miller said these polls aided ASUI in pushing for the Blackboard Learn policy when they proposed the issue to Faculty Senate.
“We got to show (Faculty Senate) that 97 percent of students wanted their grades posted on Blackboard and I think it really helped our case,” Miller said.
Karstetter said Cowan has gotten the ball rolling with this, but Karstetter hopes to see the online polls be expanded even more.
He said the polling system has received feedback from 700 students, but they are still missing feedback from thousands of UI students.
“I would like to see it get up to 4,000 or 5,000 students, but it”s kind of like stepping stones – we have to work towards that,” Karstetter said. “The Executive Board and Max (Cowan) has done an awesome job with this, but there is still room for improvement. I”m not sure what that is right now but I”m sure we”ll figure it out because it”s only been getting better.”
Jessica Gee can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JessicaC_Gee