Professor Howard Weiss at Temple University’s Fox School of Business writes about his experiences with MyOMLab. Howard, the developer of both Excel OM and POM for Windows, is also Academic Director of Temple’s EMBA program.
I just received my teaching evaluation scores from the Fall 2011 semester and once again they have improved. I have 
evaluations that go back to 2005, but Temple U. changed evaluation questions beginning in 2008 so I can only compare evaluations from 2008 and later. Fall of 2008 was the last year that I taught the course without MyOMLab. The two questions that we consider the most important are:
- The instructor taught this course well
- I learned a great deal in this course.
My average score in 2008 on the first question above was 4.15. The average during my last 3 MyOMLab years is 4.43. On the second question, I have seen a steady increase. Before using MyOMLab the average was 3.95. Since 2009, the averages have risen each year from 4.1 to 4.3 to 4.4 this past Fall. Since the only change in the course has been my adoption of MyOMLab, I have to believe that use of MyOMLab is a major reason for the increase.
On the evaluations, several students write: “ MyOMLab was very helpful” or “MyOMLab contributes to my learning”. From discussions, it is clear that they write this because MyOMLab offers instant help when doing homework problems. They appreciate the feedback they receive when they enter an incorrect answer, and also the Help Me Solve This Option, which breaks down the problem step-by-step. They value the eText option which takes them directly to the right pages in the textbook. They don’t have to carry their textbook around, nor do they have to page through the textbook to find the relevant information. Of course, when they are stuck on a problem, they like the Ask My Instructor option and my responsiveness to their questions sent to me from MyOMLab. (I appreciate that the homework problem from MyOMLab is included in the email I am sent.)
The only negative comment on the evaluations was in 2009, and was about MyOMLab having little tolerance for round off errors. This has been corrected and is no longer an issue. My hope is that MyOMLab will get even better and that my evaluation scores will also!