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 Creating an Anonymous Feedback Form
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This page explains how to set up a simple web form that will permit students to send mail to the instructor, the head TA, or any one other person from a list that you provide. You can add an anonymous feedback form to your course web by following the three steps below:

  1. Fill out this anonymous feedback configuration form. You must specify a title that will appear on your anonymous feedback form and an email for the course instructor. You may also specify email addresses for a head-TA and up to 10 additional TAs.
  2. The completion of this form creates a configuration file having the name you specified. Copy this file to your course's web directory, giving it the name .htfeedback (e.g. cp /cse/www/tmp/myfile /cse/www/education/courses/csexxx/CurrentQtr/.htfeedback) and making sure it is world readable (do a chmod o+r .htfeedback once the file is copied and renamed).
  3. Add a link to your course web so students can get to the feedback form: 
          Comments can be sent to the instructor or TAs using this
       <a href="http://www.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/unrestricted/education/fb.cgi">
       anonymous feedback form</a>

    Note that you don't have to build the feedback form itself; this is automatically done for you using the information from .htfeedback. When the user clicks the link above, the server looks at the referring URL to determine which course's web generated the request. It then walks up the course web's directory tree until it finds a .htfeedback file, which it uses to build the feedback form that is presented to the user.

Finally, don't forget to test your form.

Maintenance

Your anonymous feedback form should require little very little maintenance.

Removing the anonymous feedback form.

To remove or disable the anonymous feedback form, simply delete (or rename) the .htfeedback file and remove all links that point to http://www.cs.washington.edu/htbin-post/unrestricted/education/fb.cgi from your course web.

Changing the names of the recipients on your feedback form.

Whenever it becomes necessary to change the names or addresses of people on your anonymous feedback form, simply use the anonymous feedback configuration form to create a new .htfeedback file. Replace the old file with the new one, and your changes will take effect immediately.

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