University Assessment Council Minutes Erickson Board Room September 12, 2016 Louis Slimak Introductions o Louis Slimak Director of Academic Excellence and Assessment, TLC o Tracey Beckley Executive Director TLC o Christina DeBiase School of Dentistry o Joan Gorham Arts and Sciences o Katherine Karraker Graduate Education o Evan Widders Eberly o Karen Haines Communications Sciences and Disorders, Chair of the Curriculum Committee o Heather Henderson School of Public Health o Graham Peace B&E o Marie Abate School of Pharmacy o Barbara Copenhaver-Bailey Student Life o Matt Valenti Statler College o Sue Day-Perroots Associate Provost Undergraduate Education o Todd Petty Davis College o Shirley Robinson Provost Office o Greg Ochoa Dean of Academic Business Potomac (on the phone) o Marcia Bastian Tech The Assessment Council website, SharePoint, will be the main source for resources o ITS fixed hsc emails to be able to access the SharePoint file o Documents will be uploaded and committee can collaborate and work on them together. o Will be building templates o Discussion board- may not get used, but it is an option o Email Louis fastest way to get questions answered o Documents tab is where majority of the information will be How the Assessment Council is defined, what it will be like, core functions University Assessment Council (Document) o Make the membership staggered terms, 2 year terms Associate Provost (permanent) Slimak (permanent) Barbara, Marcia, Greg (permanent) Chairing the Faculty Senate Teaching Assessment Committee (permanent) Chair and Co-Chair of the Faculty Senate Curriculum Committees (permanent) Appointed members will serve 2 year terms Staggered Invite some present appointed members to step down after 1 year Keep a distributed number across the colleges, solid representation Be considerate of colleges that will be up for program review
Core Functions o Minimizing duplications of efforts across campus Redundancy One assessment project, make it serve multiple purposes o HLC Systematic processes, consistent across the University with quality and engagement Coming back in 2018 Ensuring that there are quality standards and practices across all campuses o Evaluate and Revise the University Assessment plan as needed o Oversee Review and Comment on Program Review Important for this year Program Review will be getting a major revision HEPC Streamline the data required Make it easier for the colleges to gather, frontload for them, focus more on meaningful response Create a system for giving them feedback before, during, and after their Program Review SharePoint and Listserv are tools for communication o Will try not to use Listserv o Mainly communicate during meetings and SharePoint o Also can communicate through the Public University Assessment Council Site is live and on the Undergraduate Education already Contact button for all faculty to use for better communication Making Systemic process transparent and allow those interested to comment For example: The Assessment Council has convened and has written up an Assessment glossary that has passed our standards 60 days if you have a problem with it, I want to hear from you The more minds the better Problems we overlooked because we did not have the expertise on the committee, we would like to know Serve on Committee button Projects page for finished projects to be publicized Meeting times and agenda will be displayed November 8 th election day (Canceled) o Keep, reschedule, or cancel o Sub-committees meet in November and entire committee meet in December Assessment Newsblast o Fail by over communicating not under communicating o Utilizing a listserv for people interested Assessment people o Send out 3-4 Newsblast Duplication, and pointing towards website, personal stories, recognition of programs, reports of accreditation and assessment o Run it through UR so it looks nice, maybe will change the name
o Listserv link will be on the website, those interested in communication and Newsblasts should ask to be on the Listserv o Louis wants to close the loop Reporting back to stakeholders Letting people know where their time and energy went o SharePoint has the list of people on the Listserv if you want to look at it and suggest someone to add Sam Houston State University s Survey of Assessment Culture o On the website for review Under Survey Assessment Culture o Current IRB approved instrument from Sam Houston State o Distribute to all faculty to voluntarily fill out survey, perception data of what they feel the state of Assessment is across WVU currently Address areas of perceived weakness (example: communication) Areas to address that are not going to be found in the HLC report or through reviewing policy and practices There were WVU specific changes (Demographics, Colleges, extended campuses) that Louis and Tracey requested, once the survey is sent back with those changes it will be brought before the Council to review. Will provide a copy or raw data for the Council to analyze, distribute, and act on Criticism- The survey is too long, only a selective group of people will finish the entire thing Possibly create our own shorter survey What do you like about assessment, what needs improvement Cannot change the actual survey because it s being used in a larger study which will compare us to other institutions Not allowed to incentivize participation The number of responses might be lower, however it will show motivation and what changes need to be made First Committee Task: Assessment Terminology o Shared standard, set of terms, and understanding of what those terms are o Pulled from an existing glossary in WVU, with roots in Assessment Commons o Review Terms- add or change o Reviewing Catalog for consistency Biggest public document the University produces Erase confusion o Assessment Glossary Task Force Barbara Heather Christina Katherine o Review of Program Review Data Fields Based on requirements of HEPC and peer institutions are collecting Set of standard data fields with standard definitions that are getting provided by the standard data source
Example: Track data field retention, define it as FT FTE Students first second year first to fourth year and get that data from IR Frontloaded to you so that you are not tracking that data, it is THE data from this particular source for that particular field HEPC is not clear on what the colleges should include, this committee will look at what are doing, collecting, what is most meaningful to respond to, and what are we going to ask programs to do because of that data What data are we including in Program Review Example: Employment Data will be provided? (that s the goal) What data can we provide the programs with Question for this subcommittee: Should Community partners be reported on, should it be required for all, why, what will be done if you get 4 employer responses if nothing is going to be done, why waste time and money? Todd Sue Graham Marcia Joan o Review and Creation of Assessment Plan and Report Templates Requests for templates for getting department or program level assessment plans typically for non-accredited program reports Yearly Assessment Plan what does that look like, what goes in there, how can I fill these things out, template for getting assessment done every year and collecting that data and having curriculum maps Template for what goes in an assessment report, what do I write in there, how do I ask people to respond Generic templates for Assessment practices not specifically connected to Program Reviews Shows what Assessment looks like on a year to year basis (nonaccredited) Templates for Graduate Council Review (resource) Greg Evan Marie Karen Timeline o December this year will be the same o Goal: Pilot new Assessment standard online in the Spring HEPC has their goal Our job as a committee is to figure out what we want through Assessment What s meaningful to us Example of accessibility actually acting on it Reconvene in October second Tuesday at 3pm
o October 11, 2016 @3pm