With classes past the half way mark at many Ohio universities, students are preparing to put in their two cents about their university's faculty and curriculum.

Student evaluations have the same meaning among Ohio's four-year institutions, but the type of input varies.

At the end of each quarter, each OU department conducts evaluations where students are asked to respond questions about course content and clarity of lectures. In-depth questions vary from college to college, and include questions about specific class procedures specialized for each department.

At Miami University, each department handles its own student evaluations, said math department Chairman David Kullman. Evaluations normally do not move up the hierarchy unless the faculty member is seeking promotion, in which case they go to a tenure committee for review.

Unlike at OU, student evaluations are not a university-wide requirement, Kullman said. But most individual departments do have a mandatory student evaluation policy.

Average evaluation results for each department are published in the "Faculty Members' Service Report," which makes statistics available to Miami students and faculty.

There are two parts to the evaluation: a standardized test established by each department, and a student comment section. The student comment section is never seen by faculty members above the department chairman, Kullman said.

The most immediate consequence for consistent negative evaluations is a lower salary, Kullman said. Lower student evaluations equal a lower salary increment, he said.

But Kullman said he feels evaluations are not the ultimatum in deciding a good faculty member.

"Students are not often aware of what constitutes effective teaching," he said. "I think they often look at the superficial, like whether that teacher made the class fun, rather than what is important."

Student evaluations should only be considered a part of the faculty evaluation process, Kullman said.

Evaluations are a good way for professors to improve their teaching skills and class content, said Miami freshman Bryane Bennett.

"I'd like to think that evaluations have some impact," she said. "If the professors didn't want to know, they wouldn't ask."

Bowling Green State University takes a different approach to their evaluative process said Mark Gromko, vice provost for academic affairs.

Faculty are evaluated by a series of promotion and tenure documents, which constitute a faculty portfolio. Three different evaluation sources must be included in each faculty member's portfolio, and student evaluations must be one of the three. Other sources may include peer evaluations, papers the faculty member has published, or dean evaluations.

Each department has a different evaluation, but evaluations are standardized in each department, Gromko said.

"Some evaluation forms are very good, and some not so," he said.

Similar to OU, evaluations are very important when a faculty member is searching for a pay raise, promotion, or tenure, he said. Negative ratings can lead to a negative consequence for faculty members.

BGSU also is looking into a new system of evaluations, called "student learning evaluations," Gromko said.

Instead of evaluating the faculty member, the new evaluations would rate the actual learning material and course. A committee is looking into the possibility, but no decisions have been made thus far.

Unlike BGSU and Miami, who only deal with evaluations on the department level, evaluations are standardized at the university level at Ohio State University said Martha Garland, vice provost for undergraduate studies.

Evaluations are given to each faculty member when he or she receives their class roster. Faculty members are encouraged, but not required, to use the evaluations.

Results are published each semester by the student government, and students can see which OSU faculty rate the highest and lowest at the university. About 30 percent of the faculty members make their evaluation results available for publication.

Individual faculty members also have the option of creating an open-ended comment section on their evaluations, Garland said. Each member determines if they will include a comment section.

For probationary faculty members, student evaluations go "all the way to the top" of the department, Garland said. Probationary faculty are the only faculty required to give student evaluations, and the results help to determine likelihood for promotion, she said.

Other faculty members are not required to give evaluations, but student approval is considered when an associate professor wishes to be promoted to professor, she said.

"Student evaluations don't distinguish between who is good and who is excellent," Garland said. "The students are very generous."

"I just fill them out and turn them in, and I never really think about it," said OSU freshman Rachna Bhatt.

Bhatt said she does not believe evaluations have much impact. Professors still have the power to determine their grading scales, course-load and teaching styles, she said.

"If the students have a problem with the professor, they can say that on their evaluation, but nothing seems to ever come of it," she said.