Call for Proposals: 2019 WSU Program Assessment Grants

To promote best practices in program-level assessment of student learning outcomes and student services programs' goals, the Office of the Provost invites Wayne State University faculty and staff to submit proposals to improve their program's assessment efforts. One-time funds are available to assist in the piloting, creation, or significant revision of a program's assessment instruments or process, or to obtain professional development in program assessment.

Consultants are available to help applicants develop an appropriate proposal. Contact WSU Director of Assessment Cathy Barrette (c.barrette@wayne.edu) with consultation requests.

See the assessment grant page for details and examples of previous awards. Proposal are due May 15, 2019.

Compliance Assist Upgrade to "Planning": June 2019

Campus Labs has significantly redesigned the system and scheduled our upgrade for early June 2019. Your program's information will be moved into the new system, and Compliance Assist in its current form will be discontinued at that time.

Some of the improvements* include:

• A new name: "Planning"  – A better reflection of the primary goal of assessment
• Auto-save – Clearer views of your program's information with new sorting and filtering options and without pop-up windows
• Streamlined workflow – Click fewer times to add, edit, move, and export information
• Better information display – No more pop-up windows; new sorting and filtering options
• Integrated tools to improve assessment practices – Automated analysis of learning outcomes by the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy; curriculum mapping
• A designated help center for Planning – Videos and written instructions, chat, email, and phone support provided by Campus Labs

Updated support materials and workshops will be available once the upgrade is complete.

AY17-18 Annual Report Highlights

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 and where we need to improve in the highlights infographic or read the full report for more detail.

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:
    • 2018-2019 (PDF)
    • 2017-2018 (PDF)
    • 2016-2017 (PDF)
    • 2015-2016 (PDF)
    • 2014-2015 (PDF)
• Measure how well programs are achieving those goals
• Use that information to improve program quality
  • Examples from WSU Peer-to-Peer Program Assessment Forum presenters
• 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.

New Resource: Assessment Handbooks (pdf)