Before Feedback Fusion was a product idea, it was a lived challenge.
For Dr. Greg Mayer, a professor in the School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech, the problem was not a lack of student feedback. It was the opposite.
It was having too much of it and not enough time to truly understand it.
Dr. Mayer teaches large enrollment courses at Georgia Tech, many of them online. As class sizes grew, so did the complexity of teaching.
“As enrollments got larger, it became harder and harder to connect with students and make meaningful changes to the course,” he shared.
Student feedback has always been part of teaching. Surveys, reflections, and course evaluations are standard across institutions. But as those responses scale into the hundreds or thousands, something starts to break.
“It’s not a new problem, but it’s one that gets harder as enrollment increases.”
Quantitative feedback, like Likert scale responses, is relatively easy to summarize. But the real insights often live in the open-ended responses, and that is where things become difficult.
In a course with close to 1,000 students, reviewing qualitative feedback is not just time-consuming. It is overwhelming.
“At the start of the semester, going through survey responses can take hours,” Dr. Mayer said. “And even after that, you still feel like you’re missing something.”
In smaller classes, instructors may regularly ask for input through mid-semester surveys or tools like “muddiest point” reflections. But as enrollment grows, those practices become harder to sustain.
“When the class size increases, it becomes more difficult to act on that data. In some cases, instructors just stop asking as frequently.”
When qualitative feedback is reduced to summaries, keywords, or word clouds, something important disappears.
Nuance.
And with it, opportunity.
“Students are often asking for help in those responses,” Dr. Mayer explained. “But those requests can get buried.”
That means missed chances to connect students with resources, guidance, or support systems that already exist.
It also means students may continue struggling, not because help is unavailable, but because their needs were not surfaced in time.
“Students can go without the support they need, even when it’s there.”
For Dr. Mayer, this is not just about better analytics. It is about better outcomes for students.
He shared an example of a student preparing for an exam, relying only on sample quizzes and unaware of the broader set of resources available.
“A simple response could help that student reallocate their time and prepare more effectively,” he said.
If one student is asking that question, how many others are thinking the same thing?
In large courses, it is nearly impossible to know.
“If this helps even one student understand how to study, how to ask for help, or how to use resources better, then we’ve done our job.”
For him, teaching goes far beyond grades.
“The skills students develop, asking for help, managing their time, understanding how they learn, are transferable. That is what really matters.”
Through conversations with other educators, Dr. Mayer realized he was not alone in this challenge.
“There just isn’t a tool that most faculty would realistically pick up and use for qualitative feedback analysis,” he said.
What surprised him most was the level of support for solving it.
From collaborators to institutional backing, the Feedback Fusion journey has been shaped by a community of educators who recognize the need for something better.
“It’s been a really grateful journey. So many people have contributed their time, ideas, and insights.”
At its core, Feedback Fusion is not about replacing educators with AI.
It is about helping them do what they already care deeply about, connecting with students.
“If I could change one thing, it would be making it easier to connect people with people.”
Across campuses, there are countless resources. Teaching assistants, academic support teams, disability services, librarians. But connecting students to those resources, especially at scale, is still a challenge.
“That’s what this is really about. Keeping humans connected. Keeping humans in the loop.”
Dr. Mayer did not originally set out to become a professor.
“I just consider myself an academic professional,” he said with a smile.
But after teaching his first course, something clicked.
“I realized I was helping people in a very immediate way. I could see the impact, and I really enjoyed that.”
That motivation has stayed with him.
“I still love helping students, whether that is solving a math problem or figuring out how to study more effectively. It is all part of the same journey.”
Feedback Fusion is an AI-powered qualitative data analytics platform designed for higher education. It helps institutions turn open-ended student feedback into meaningful, actionable insights while preserving context, nuance, and trust.
The goal is not to replace educators, but to support them by making it easier to understand what students are saying and connect them with the resources they need.
We are currently speaking with educators, instructional designers, and higher education leaders as we continue building Feedback Fusion.
If you work with student feedback and are interested in learning more or sharing your perspective, we would love to connect.