Week 3 - Two Innovative Assessment Programs in Student Affairs

The Planning and Assessment Office at the University of North Texas developed an interactive, MS Excel-based document to facilitate departmental program review using Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education guidelines. The Excel document automatically generates real-time graphical summaries of criterion measure scores for each part of the review as well as a text report of these measures to share with upper administration. In addition, the interactive format is equipped with placeholders for documents associated to programmatic review to allow easy access in following years. To date, three Student Development departments have used this new tool to facilitate their CAS programmatic reviews with significant time savings. The Dashboard is the centerpiece in a comprehensive “CAS process” at UNT that includes peripheral documents and presentations to create a retreat-style program review with maximum staff participation. 

This format creates an inclusive environment as well as dialogue to engage student affairs staff in continuous improvement efforts. More information about the CAS Dashboard can be found at: http://pasd.unt.edu/resources/index.html#presentations

The advent of electronic portfolios allows students, staff and faculty to track accomplishments and learning outcomes over time. These portfolios allow students to store evidence from both curricular and co-curricular outcomes and represent a content-rich assessment that documents student learning and development. The portfolios can also be used to track the progress and improvement of programs and services. Electronic portfolios have become a hot topic at recent assessment conferences including the 2008 IUPUI Assessment Institute for both academic and student affairs assessment. More information on the use of electronic portfolios can be found here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/112217001/PDFSTART
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume39/TheDigitalConvergenceExtending/157910
http://portfolio.psu.edu/

Author - Dr. Sharon Karackattu, Director, Planning and Assessment Office in Student Development, University of North Texas


Question: What other innovative ideas do you know about in student affairs assessment?