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Assessment Starter Kit

Good assessment works with your program's purposes and with your curriculum in a complete circle:

Notice that the circle goes in both directions: each element influences (and is influenced by) the other two. curriculum carries out program goals and objectives assessment checks how well curriculum is working curriculum, and program goals and objectives, are all informed by the results of assessment

If you're just beginning the assessment program for your college, school, or department, you can come in at any point along the circle. Don't worry about sticking to a top-down, elegantly systematic procedure that begins with a sweeping program review, unless you're already undertaking one anyway.

It also pays to think in terms of small, sustainable steps:

• work first with those goals of your program that can be easily tested, and try the more subjective ones later
• identify existing apparatus that you can harness to assessment (for example, a juried, program-wide journal of student writing, or a scholarship competition)
• latch onto activities already undertaken by your students as they leave your program, for example if they're all required to put together a portfolio of work, or enroll in a capstone course
• use scoring rubrics where possible, to convert subjective judgments to quantities that can be compared over time (a good source of these is at the online Rubric Bank)

Realize also that your efforts probably won't work the first time out. They're still worth undertaking, though, since it's easier to modify an existing assessment program - no matter how clumsy - than it is to design one from scratch.

It's a good idea to begin by looking at what you've already got. A useful tool for this is the assessment starter kit, developed by Wilkinson College. It's an Excel File, that you can use as you work out the information you'll need to report to the Chancellor's office.

Next steps:

• download the Starter Kit (Excel file)  

Recommendations and Formatting Guidelines

The Assessment Committee created recommendations and formatting guidelines for all departments, schools, and colleges to assist in developing their learning outcomes assessment plans and presenting their annual learning outcomes assessment reports for the 2006-07 year. Please contact the Assessment Committee and Vice Chancellor David Fite for assistance and support in responding to these recommendations.

Glossary

We have included a glossary of common terminology that may be helpful if you're new to the process. See Glossary of Assessment Terms.