Important Note: This article discusses classic functionality. For information on the modern applicant experience, refer to the Applicant Experience Knowledgebase article.
Program ratings and reviews can be collected through a questionnaire and the information can be displayed on program brochure pages for marketing purposes:
Configuring Ratings and Reviews
To configure your site to collect ratings and reviews, follow these steps:
Settings > Question Items: create all the question items for your ratings and reviews questionnaire. The question item type 'Rating' can be used to collect ratings that will be displayed in the form of stars and the question item type 'Short Description' can be used to collect open-ended reviews. The same questionnaire will be used for all programs for which you enable program ratings and reviews, so it is best to make the questions applicable to all programs.
Process > Questionnaires: create a new questionnaire that includes all the questions you want to use for your ratings and reviews. All the questionnaire configuration options will work as expected except the 'Applies to' setting. It does not matter if you make this questionnaire apply to Outgoing, Incoming, Scholarship or Risk Management.
Settings > System Features > Programs Tab: Scroll down to the Ratings & Reviews section and make sure all the settings are configured as desired.
- Select the questionnaire that you want to designate as the ratings and reviews questionnaire.
- Min. # of Ratings Required to Display: Star ratings will not display on the brochure until this number of ratings have been submitted.
- Max # of stars for rating questions: Decide how many stars (1 to 10) you would like to use in the display and ratings feature.
- # of Reviews to Display in Brochure: Set the number of reviews to display in the Reviews panel on the brochure page. There will be a link to see all reviews if more than the set number are published.
Process > App Cycles: Deploy the ratings and reviews questionnaire in the desired application cycles (as with any new process element).
Star ratings are automatically updated as applicants submit their ratings.
Open-ended reviews must be published by an administrator before they will appear on the brochure. Follow these steps to publish reviews:
- Program > go to the program builder for the desired program > Feedback tab
- A list of pending reviews will be available and the admin should publish or reject the reviews
On the Feedback tab it is also possible to change some of the ratings/reviews settings on the program level. This feature can be enabled/disabled for specific programs, the minimum number required before the star display appears can be change on the program level and the number of reviews to display on the brochure can be changed.
Applicants will submit ratings and reviews in the form of a questionnaire and their process is just like submitting any other questionnaire in their application with the exception of a notice at the top of the questionnaire that says:
"Your responses to these questions may be published to this program's public brochure page. Do you wish to have your name associated with these responses if they are made public? Yes/No"
The applicant is able to determine if they want their name to appear along with their reviews if they are published.
How Program Ratings are Calculated
In calculating the numeric ratings for a program, the following method is used to determine what the star ratings are for characteristics:- The current version of the questionnaire determines what characteristics are going to be displayed. Any 'Rating’ question item types in that version are considered the characteristics.
- ALL submitted responses for that question item through the rating questionnaire are used to determine the frequency distribution for each rating level. This is not limited to the current version of the rating questionnaire. It will include submitted responses of prior versions (this allows the admins to change the characteristics that are rated, but not lose prior history of submitted ratings).
- The average is calculated across all the submitted responses for the final rating that is to be displayed.