As part of a recent LMS implementation, student surveys are all now distributed on-line. The return rate has plummeted. Any thoughts on how to motivate attendees to return the evals? FYI..they are pushed out to the students immediately following the class as well as including the url in the WebEx chat window at the end of class.

The number possible causes for low return rates is, sad to say, substantial. They can reside with the content, the process, and the context. Here are a few:

too many items included
relevance to student not clear
history of inaction on feedback
question/item structure
scales inappropriate
anonymity/confidentiality issues
disconnects in administration of survey
incorrect email or contact info
out of office
job change/reassignment
no due date or expectation set for completion
sent to soon
not saying thank you

For those I administer on behalf of clients the best motivators seems to be making sure the participants know how the feedback will be used and that their participation is confidential.

Jeff

Why do you care about the rate of return? Seriously....I know there are some who would disagree with me but I think there are two primary reasons to do Level I evals:
--you've got either a new course or new facilitator and you are trying to make a decision whether or not to continue going with either (or it's a pilot course and is currently undergoing revision). Or...
--you want to provide an easy avenue for feedback in case the facilitator did something especially bad/offensive or the course materials had an issue that really pushed people's buttons.

Let's face it, if you average a 4.5 on a 5.0 Likert scale, that tells you basically nothing. If overall evals go up or down over time, that tells you basically nothing. If people liked the instructor, that doesn't mean the instructor did a good job (or flip side, if the course got poor reviews that doesn't necessarily mean the course was bad or should be changed).

Response rates matter if we're trying to extrapolate from data. But the only data you care about at this point (assuming it's not a new instructor, new course, something being piloted) is to provide an avenue for people who have an issue. And you're doing that via the online evals. It's a reasonable assumption that since the vast majority of people aren't responding than the instructor or content wasn't a problem for them.

Now, for the argument that "I want the continual feedback in order to improve"...well, level one eval forms aren't especially effective at that. Far better to do a plus-delta at the end of the class or after a particular section of content that is new to the class or has just been revised.