2019-2020 Assessment Adjustments for COVID-19

Dear colleagues:

Thank you for all your efforts to support students throughout our ongoing transition. Given the many changes you have made, some changes to program assessment are also in order.

In consultation with the University Assessment Council and others, several changes to our program assessment practices, informed by national discussions, have been adopted for 2019-2020. These changes reduce the pressure on you, provide options for adapting to this semester's many changes, and still achieve the goals of assessment:

CHANGES TO REDUCE THE PRESSURE

Extended deadline for documentation: August 31

Reduced the requirements to one of each of the following in Planning:

• Results
• Action plan
• Timeline for implementation

CHANGES TO ADAPT TO THE SITUATION

Choose the option that works best for your program in the current situation. Need help deciding? Use this decision tree.

Option 1: In place of your existing assessment plan, conduct a qualitative analysis of how the change to online teaching and learning will affect you and your students, colleagues, and programs in the future. (See the qualitative analysis guide for details.)

Option 2: Implement your existing assessment plan for one learning outcome, although perhaps with some modifications.

Support is available! Video or text chat or email your questions to Cathy Barrette, Director of Assessment.

GENERAL EDUCATION PROGRAM ASSESSMENT

The General Education Oversight Committee will provide information specific to Gen Ed assessment in the near future. In 2019-2020, assessment is scheduled for all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), Quantitative Experience (QE), and Social Inquiry (SI) courses. See the Gen Ed Program Assessment website for more information and support.

WSU Assessment Grant Panel Rescheduled

New date: Monday, May 11, 11:00-noon (online)

Assessment Poster Tour Postponed

Posters recognizing programs' good assessment practices in support of student learning will continue their tour of campus once everyone returns to campus. For now, please view the digital versions on the Assessment Examples page.

Congratulations to the 2019 WSU Assessment Grant Recipients!

Provost Keith E. Whitfield awarded grants to projects designed to improve assessment practices in five programs: Honors Undergraduate Program, Juris Doctor (JD), Composition Learning Community, BS in Nursing (BSN), and Academic Pathways for Excellence (APEX). See the WSU Assessment Grants page for a description of each project and read the 2018 grant recipients' final reports as well. 

AY18-19 Annual Report

Each year we collect data on our institution's assessment practices and use that information to improve the supports available for program assessment. See where we're doing well, where we need to improve, and how we're recognizing and supporting assessment in the 2018-2019 annual report.

Mission

WSU Assessment's mission is to engage faculty, staff, administrators, and students from academic and co-curricular/student services programs in an effective, sustainable process of continuous program improvement that enhances student learning throughout their time at Wayne State. WSU Assessment encourages stakeholders' engagement by:

• offering professional development opportunities in program assessment, such as workshops, group and individual consultations, training videos, presentations, and written documentation
• disseminating information about program assessment through peer support structures (University, College/School /Division, and Departmental program assessment committees; program assessment coordinators) and online at assessment.wayne.edu
• recognizing individuals and programs for their exemplary progress and scholarly presentations or publications in assessment
• facilitating feedback processes to improve the quality of programs' assessment plans

Read our AY17-18, AY16-17, AY15-16, and AY14-15 annual reports to see our progress so far and our plans for improvement.

Program assessment supports students, faculty, and staff by helping programs to: 

• Articulate their goals
  • Find your program's learning outcomes for 2019-2020 (PDF)
• Measure how well programs are achieving those goals
• Use that information to improve program quality
  • See good models from WSU programs
• Communicate programs' successes effectively
  • You can share your program assessment efforts through scholarly publication or presentation or through the Provost's Fellows program. See examples from our own Wayne State colleagues that have already done so.

Get started on your assessment plan now using the resources on this site. For example:

• Use the University Assessment plan feedback rubric (MS Word) to compare your assessment plan to best practices.
• See examples of the core components of a complete assessment plan: 
  • Assessment plan (PDF) and annual report to stakeholders
  • Academic and Student Services curriculum map examples and template (XLS)
• Watch video tutorials to learn how to create or improve each item of an assessment plan and to use Compliance Assist to store your plan.
• Hold monthly discussions guided by the Program or Department or College Conversation Calendars (PDF) to simplify your assessment planning work.

Assessment Handbooks (pdf)