The design and application of a web-based teacher evaluation system for STEM education

Abstract

The quality of a teacher is the most important factor that affects students’ learning and achievement. The weak or incompetent teachers are a threat to the reputation of the profession and the quality of education that students receive. Recently, educators and policymakers are concerned on how to improve teacher quality. Many types of research have demonstrated that teacher evaluation could promote the teaching efficiency and teacher quality. In order to avoid fearing from the instructors, good teacher evaluation should have the following factors. (1) Authenticity: Participants in the teacher evaluation system cannot be impersonated and signatures cannot be forged. (2) Integrity: The results of teacher evaluation cannot be altered. (3) Security: The details of the process of teacher evaluation and information of participants should be kept as secure as possible. (4) Privacy: Sensitive information such as the participant's name must be protected. Based on the characteristics mentioned above, to design a high-quality evaluation system, this work proposes the teacher evaluation system by applying the cryptography, to develop a web-based system for STEM education. All the participants were those with the ability to operate the online evaluation system. Finally, the system could really provide a fair evaluation.