Program/Unit Assessment Basics. Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness

Transcription

1 Program/Unit Assessment Basics Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness

2 What is an assessment plan? Assessment plans: Have approximately 6 annual goals for the unit/program Describe how these goals fit with the College s goals Explain how progress towards the unit/program s goals will be measured Explain who will be responsible for measuring and meeting each goal Have clear deadlines for when goals should be achieved

3 Who needs to create a program/unit assessment plan? Both master s programs All designation programs Enrollment Accounting Information Technology Student Services Center Editing Corporate Sales Marketing If you are the head of one of these programs/units, you are responsible for helping your program/unit create an assessment plan!

4 How is this different than what we already do in SuccessFactors? Five* of the goals included in your program/unit s assessment plan should be the same goals that your program/unit has in SuccessFactors *If your program/unit has fewer than five SuccessFactors goals, that s ok. Just use all of the SuccessFactors goals that you have You re already doing assessment, so we don t want to add unnecessary work Being able to integrate the SuccessFactors goals into the College-wide assessment plan will help build our case for HLC that the College systematically assesses student learning and organizational performance

5 Ok, 5 goals come from SuccessFactors. What about the 6 th goal? This 6 th goal addresses the need to demonstrate continuous improvement for HLC. The 6 th goal needs to relate to one of the College s Improving Student Outcomes goals. These goals are: Increase persistence rates Increase graduation rates Improve students post-graduation outcomes Every unit does something for students, even if they don t work directly with students. For example, IT ensures data is collected and maintained appropriately, which makes it possible to give students feedback on what classes they need to take to complete their program. This increases both persistence rates and graduation rates.

6 How do I fill out the assessment plan form I see in the handbook on p.13? Goals: List your program/unit s goals (5 goals from SuccessFactors, 1 goal related to Improving Student Outcomes) Alignment with College goals: Explain how each goal fits with the College s goals. You don t need to go into lots of detail. Just a sentence or two is fine. For the 5 SuccessFactors goals, explain how each goal fits with one of the College s goals for the fiscal year (since they re linked in SuccessFactors, this should be easy) For the 1 Improving Student Outcomes goal, explain how this goal fits with one of the College s 3 Improving Student Outcomes goals

7 How do I fill out the assessment plan form? Measure(s): Explain how you ll determine whether the goal has been met. How are you going to measure progress towards the goal? Method: Explain how you ll get the measure(s) information (above) Timeline: By what date are you hoping to achieve the goal? Responsible person(s): Who is in charge of measuring progress to determine whether the goal has been met, and then reporting this information to the unit/program leader?

8 I have concerns about putting together the assessment plan. What now? Contact Jake Rodriguez Natalie Wright or Rebecca Henderson if you have any questions If you send Natalie a copy of your assessment plan, she will review it and provide feedback

9 After submitting the assessment plan, what do we do? Begin assessing progress toward your goals. Document information along the way, rather than just assessing progress right before the assessment summary is due The assessment summary will need to include: An introduction describing your unit/program s goals for the year Information about whether your unit/program met it s goals (and how you know this). Tables and graphs to display results are very helpful. If your unit/program ran into any problems with working towards a goal, explain this here as well. An explanation of how your unit/program will use the results of the year s assessment to improve in the future, and how you ll use the results of the year s assessment to inform the next year s assessment plan

10 When is all of this due? Normally the assessment cycle runs from September 1 August 31. This year, we got a late start, so assessment plans are due on January 11. After this year, they will be due on October 15. Assessment summaries are due on August 31

11 I need more clarification on some part of this process, or have serious reservations about this whole assessment thing. What now? Contact Jake Rodriguez or Natalie Wright They can help you work through the assessment process, and can explain why assessment is so important.