Information about internal reporting including Faculty Activity Reports, Student Course Evaluation, and Departmental Reports is available on the Assessment Reports page (restricted access).
The mission statement of the department or unit defines, in one or two paragraphs, its goals, values and aspirations as related to the university vision and strategic goals. It should also indicate the most important functions of the department/unit.
Objectives are statements of ways in which a unit aims at achieving its mission, how processes should work and what their optimal result should be. Objectives should be measurable and attainable.
Learning outcomes are statements of the knowledge, skills and abilities individual students should possess and can demonstrate upon completion of a learning experience or sequence of learning experiences. They should be measurable, attainable within the context of the learning unit (program, course, specific activity) and should contribute to the mission of the department.
You should develop 3-5 learning outcomes for your program. MSCHE provides guidelines in chapter 2 of the handbook on Student Learning Assessment: Options and Resources (2nd Edition, 2007). I would also recommend this more practical guide of the University of Richmond (see section 3 on creating learning outcomes). Here is a quick summary:
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (1956) is one traditional framework for structuring learning outcomes. Levels of performance for Bloom’s cognitive domain include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These categories are arranged in ascending order of cognitive complexity where evaluation represents the highest level. The table below presents a description of the levels of performance for Bloom’s cognitive domain.
Sample Learning Outcomes from the same guide of the University of Richmond
Describe how a learning outcome has been (or will be) assessed. The emphasis is on producing direct evidence such as creations, research papers, responses to tests.
Examples of direct evidence (taken from this list of methods for the assessment of student learning recommended on the MSCHE web site):
Indirect evidence, such as students' perceptions of their learning and the educational environment, may also be used.
Examples of indirect evidence (taken from the list of methods for the assessment of student learning recommended on the MSCHE web site):
NOTE: Indirect methods alone do not provide adequate information about student learning outcomes.
These are some notes about dashboard products that we have been looking at. The list is far from being complete, suggestions are welcome.
(marked with a star * are the papers that I found particularly interesting, but all papers listed here have been selected because they analyse an interesting aspect of course evaluations)
A faculty member can access his/her syllabi via his/her profile on MyAUP at ‘MyAUP / My Profile / Faculty / My Courses’ or directly here.
For each course offering a variety of actions are available:
Please read the frequently asked questions and user guide for more information (use the link under ‘My Courses’).
Syllabi are available to students via the Course Catalog.