Evaluation of teaching in the Department of Computer Science takes into account the following items, which is quoted from the department's approved Procedures and Criteria for Evaluation and Promotion, Tenure, and Salary Increase Recommendations (see Appendix A for the full document):
The evidence used to evaluate teaching includes:
Formal peer visitations are done by the Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC) as part of the third year evaluation of Assistant Professors, as part of the data gathering for promotion and tenure cases, and occasionally as part of the FEC's annual evaluation if other data indicates there may be a cause for concern. Faculty members sometimes also choose to sit in on a course in order to learn more about a given subject; when this happens, the fact that the one faculty member values the teaching of the other enough to spend the time to sit in is generally regarded as a compliment.
The department also collects survey data on long-term student perceptions of faculty, via an exit interview form that is administered to all graduating students. This information is available to the department chair and potentially available to the FEC, though so far the FEC has not yet chosen to use it in annual evaluations.