Announcing PICA, Personalized Instructor/Course Appraisal system.   The PICA system is an online appraisal system designed to provide you with feedback from students about your courses.  It is also designed to provide end-of-term appraisal data for Deans and Department Heads.  Data produced by PICA will be similar to data produced with the current paper-based appraisal system but with some differences:   You may conduct appraisals at mid-term for all or some of your courses All of the mid-term appraisal items may be of your own choosing. Results of mid-term appraisals are not reported to the Dean or Department Head. Results are reported to you as soon as the mid-term appraisal period ends. You may select additional items for your end-of-term appraisal if the Dean and Department Head have selected fewer than 20. You may select additional essay questions for your end-of-term appraisal. All items on the form have an option for the student to add comments. Results, both statistical summaries and comments, are returned to you one day after final grades are turned in. The system is secure. Students must login with a Neo password in order to complete the appraisal form. You must login with your Neo password in order to view your results.   You may login to PICA to select the courses you want appraised and to select the items on the form, at https://pica.tamu.edu/instructor.  There you will be requested to supply your Neo alias and password.   To see an example of the appraisal form as it appears to students, you may login to https://pica.tamu.edu/guest.  The alias for the guest module is "guest" and the password is "guest."   When you have selected your courses and your items, you will need to inform the student of the URL: https://pica.tamu.edu/student  It is best to allow them plenty of time, (a couple of weeks) to do the appraisal.  It is also a good idea to encourage them to do it.   You are also invited to join the AM-PICA listserv, which will be a discussion list of PICA users where topics such as maintaining or increasing response rate will be discussed.  This will also be a place where desirable features can be proposed.  Notices of changes to the system will be posted to the discussion list in advance.  To join the list, send email to listserv@listserv.tamu.edu and in the BODY put    SUBSCRIBE am-pica firstname lastname   If you have questions about PICA, please contact me at metroy@tamu.edu or 845-0532