CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
GUIDELINES FOR BEST PRACTICES IN TEACHING AND EVALUATION
As an educational institution that promotes non-discrimination and academic excellence,
Central European University expects all departments and individual faculty to adhere to
such academic and pedagogic behavior as will best ensure good student-faculty relations
and maximize accountability, transparency, coherence, and procedural fairness in day-today course administration and evaluation. The present document present guidelines to
assist departments and faculty in the maintenance of such best practices.
Respectful, Humane Treatment
1. Each student should be treated in a respectful, humane, ethical, fair and unbiased
manner, in the classroom, in all aspects of course work and in all communication with
faculty and the administration.
Fullest Expression of Beliefs
2. Each student has the right to the fullest expression of beliefs through any means that
are orderly, do not violate any laws, regulations, or the rights of and offend other
students, faculty or staff.
Disclosure of course requirements and evaluation methods
3. All course objectives, evaluation methods and dates, course requirements, rules of
attendance, grading and conduct should be communicated to students in a timely
manner and through a channel that all students have easy access to. Students should
be provided no later than the end of the second class with a course syllabus that
includes grading policies, assessment format, and course requirements (e.g.
attendance, reading and writing assignments), office hours and office telephone of the
course instructor. Where individual students may have missed this information, the
course instructor should make every reasonable effort to inform these students at the
earliest possible opportunity.
4. Changes to a course’s grading policies, test format, scheduled classes, or other
requirements (e.g. attendance, reading and writing assignments) should not be made
after the close of the course add/drop period. Where there are special grounds for
such late changes, the instructor should explain these to the students participating in
the course and give reasonable consideration to the latter’s concerns and objections.
Where an agreement cannot be reached, the issue may be resolved with assistance
the head of department.
Rules and requirements in accordance with Procedural and Substantive Fairness
5. Individual course instructors should ensure that course rules and requirements are
made in accordance with the principles of procedural and substantive fairness. To this
end, each department should issue guidelines for faculty on what is an acceptable
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workload (reading, written assignments, exams, etc) for a course. These guidelines
should be made available to students.
Appropriate Instruction
6. Faculty should begin classes promptly and should present or organize the objectives
to be achieved during the class in an appropriate manner, providing relevant and
structured activities that take into account both the students’ needs and the nature of
the subject matter.
Evaluation and Grading
7. Faculty should evaluate any assignments given to students according to consistent,
transparent criteria and wherever appropriate in such a way that the student has a
clear idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the assignment. When awarding a grade,
faculty should take care to do so in a manner that is transparent, fair, reasonable,
coherent, consistent and free from bias.
8. In the case of an extended written assignment which is awarded a grade, faculty
should accompany this with qualitative comments sufficient to enable the student to
understand the strengths and weaknesses of the paper and the reasons why such a
grade was awarded. If such comments are not automatically provided, the student has
the right to request them within one month of the deadline for submission.
9. In the case of assessment by set question, the course instructor should make every
effort to ensure that unclear wording or other errors do not unreasonably impede
students’ understanding of the task. The department should ensure, particularly in the
case of visiting lecturers who may not be present at the time the exam is administered,
that exam questions or tasks are indeed free of unintentional ambiguity and where
not, resolve this confusion before the exam is administered. Either the course
instructor or a permanent staff member shall be available at the time of the
assessment for at least 15 minutes in order to answer any questions students may have
regarding the understanding of the questions listed in the assessment paper.
Reasonable and Humane Workload
10. No student shall be required to attend classes for more than 6 consecutive days.
11. Departments should ensure that the combined courses of its programs do not require
an overall workload in excess of what is reasonable and humane in the context of
graduate studies. Individual faculty should also make reasonable efforts to ensure that
the workload for any course they offer does not significantly exceed the share that
course occupies in the overall program in terms of credits.
12. Each department shall allow student representatives a voice in the process of ensuring
that the program workload is reasonable and humane, and should take seriously the
concerns presented by student representatives.
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Evaluation of Faculty
13. CEU recognizes and values the right of each student to evaluate the performance of
his or her instructors in an anonymous manner, through course evaluation forms.
Faculty should take such evaluations seriously and act upon them in an appropriate
manner.
Remedies
14. Faculty are urged to take seriously students’ claims for infringement of this code of
best practices and to act promptly wherever possible and appropriate to make good
any shortcomings that have been fairly pointed out. Students are equally urged
resolve and redress alleged deviation from best practices through dialogue and
discussion with the faculty member concerned.
15. Where the above does not lead to resolution of the problem, students should discuss
the problem with officials in a supervisory position in the following order: (i)
Program Director, (ii) Head of Department, and (iii) Vice President for Student
Services).
16. If an alleged case of non-compliance with the above guidelines cannot be resolved
through informal communication, as described above, the following procedures
should be followed:
Students may submit a formal complaint to the Vice President for Student Services,
who will forward it to the Senate Quality Assurance Committee for consideration.
If the complaint falls under the jurisdiction of the Senate Disciplinary Committee, it
will be forwarded accordingly. If the complaint is deemed not to be a Disciplinary
Committee matter, the Senate Quality Assurance Committee will consider it within
one month of receipt.
If the Committee determines that the complaint is valid, the complaint will be
forwarded to the office of the Pro-Rector with recommendations. The Pro-Rector will
notify the Quality Assurance Committee of the action taken.
Members of the Senate Quality Assurance Committee should meet and communicate
regularly with the Student Council to ensure that best practices in teaching and evaluation
are being followed. The Committee will ensure this document is made available to all
members of the university via the CEU web-site.
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