University
Planning & Analysis
Internet
Resources for Higher Education Outcomes Assessment
Many of the pages on this list have links to other resources
and to each other. We like to use other people's lists of links instead
of connecting to all the resources directly from here.
We keep looking for new resources and lists of links, and for
new pages on individual institutions' assessment programs. If you know
of sites that we should add to this list, please email
us their Internet addresses.
The Internet is fluid--pages and their locations change often.
If you find that we have the wrong address for a page, or that its
contents have changed and our description is no longer accurate, please
let us
know.
Since the links on this site are annotated
with brief descriptions, you can use your browser's Find
(Ctrl-F) function to locate information about a particular topic. For
example, you can find entries whose links or
annotations include the word "survey."
Many of the sites include pdf files. You
can download a free
Adobe Acrobat Reader for these files.
Most recent new links: 4/23/08
Most recent check/update of broken links: 3/22/08
Annotations checked/updated: Winter 2007-08
About this list
General
resources--discussion groups, lists of links, archives of
articles, etc.
Assessment
"handbooks"
Assessment of
specific skills or content
Individual
institutions' assessment-related pages
a
b c
d e
f g
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Accrediting
bodies
Student
assessment of courses & faculty
9
Principles of Good Practice for Assessing Student Learning
ACT
- Surveys and assessment tools for colleges &
universities.
- Links to information about other ACT tools for higher
education.
Association
of American Colleges & Universities
- AAC&U's assessment initiatives: multi-institution
research on assessment approaches and impacts.
- AAC&U's assessment-related publications, meetings,
and institutes.
- Links to other assessment resources.
American College Personnel Association's ASK
Project (pdf file): Assessment skills and
knowledge standards for Student Affairs practitioners. From ACPA's Commission for
Assessment for Student Development.
American
Society for Quality: Education Division
- A division of ASQ, the national organization for the
application of quality control in business and industry.
- K-12 as well as higher education.
Assessing administrative and support units
Assessment
and Accountability Forum
- Quarterly journal on assessment issues in higher education,
published 1991-2002.
- Especially, but not exclusively, issues related to
nontraditional students/education.
- Published by
The Phoenix Institute / InterEd, a for-profit assessment
organization. Forum articles are usually of
general interest, not InterEd sales pitches.
- Some articles are available on-line.
Assessment
and Evaluation in Higher Education
- Quarterly journal on assessment issues/methods.
- Contents alerting service.
- Contents of issues since March 1996.
- Subscription information; obtaining a sample copy.
Assessment committees
- ASSESS
discussion-list threads on committee structure and function
(see the list archive):
- March 1999 thread Faculty committees,
initiated by Suzanne Decamp.
- September 2003 thread Course releases for
faculty on assessment committees?, initiated by Tiffany
Phagan.
- October 2005 thread Committee structure,
initiated by David Gordon.
- November 2007 thread Institutional assessment
committee, initiated by Erin Frew. Note Erin's 11/22/07
summary of responses.
Assessment Grants
- Grant
Opportunities: Blue Ridge Community College's annotated list
of private foundations that support
higher-education projects.
- Examples of campus-based programs to
support faculty and departmental assessment projects. Some of
these grant programs are currently active, some are not.
(Thanks to Kurt Gunnell at Kansas State University for posting the
responses from the November 2000 ASSESS-list
discussion on this topic. Some of these links are from Kurt's list.)
Assessment in Higher Education
has annotated lists and links to resources about assessment of student
learning in higher education.
- The site focuses on assessment of individual students'
learning. While it does not emphasize resources about evaluating
courses, programs, or individual instructors, many of the references
and links are relevant to those activities.
- The site lists
- online and offline articles, journals, and books.
- online discussion lists, assessment-related
organizations and conferences, and glossaries of assessment terminology.
- software to facilitate assessment activities.
- resources specifically related to multiple-choice tests
and quizzes.
- other assessment-related websites.
Assessment Resources
Assessment Rubrics
- Winona
State University's extensive list of rubrics for various
disciplines, skills, and college-level assignments includes examples
from many campuses. Note the link you can use to suggest additional
examples.
- Examples of rubrics for general education outcomes from Bowling
Green State University. Also has links to other information
about assessment rubrics.
- Examples of rubrics for general education outcomes from Brenau
University. Select Forms and Rubrics and
follow the drop-down menus. (Word documents.)
- Examples of rubrics for general education outcomes from California
State University, Fresno, with suggestions for developing and
using rubrics.
- Washington
State University rubric for critical thinking.
- Sites designed for K-12 education, but useful as models and
adaptable for higher education performance assessments.
The Assessment
for Student Development Clearinghouse, previously
maintained by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA)'s Commission on
Assessment for Student Development, is no longer available.
Assessment Update
- This bimonthly newsletter is one of the best ways to keep
up with new developments and what's going on elsewhere.
- Updated versions of Web
Corner columns are available online.
Association for Institutional
Research
Automated essay grading
Baldridge
National Quality Program: Education Criteria
- See the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) National
Quality Program site for more information about the Malcolm
Baldridge National Quality Awards.
Benchmarking
Bloom's
Taxonomy
- Bloom's 1956 taxonomy of cognitive, affective, and
psychomotor behaviors is
often used or referred to in defining outcomes for assignments,
courses, and curricula. Google Bloom's Taxonomy for
a long list of relevant websites. Some with definitions
& examples of Bloom's cognitive
categories are:
Center
for
Education
Assessment
- Information about: CEA's consulting activities and
software for organizing NCATE
program review and related assessment information.
- Note: While CEA focuses on assessment of
teacher education, their programs can also be used to
organize assessment information in other academic areas.
Centro
Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior
(México)
- Ceneval develops and administers performance exams for
college entrance and assessment and for licensing/certification
programs.
- The website includes information about Ceneval's exams and
administration sites. Students can register and view their own results
online.
- Note: Ceneval's website is in Spanish.
Thanks to Phil Schmidt from Western Governors University for
translation assistance.
Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATS)
- Hints, tips, techniques, and examples from:
- Course-based
Review and Assessment (University of Massachusetts Amherst, pdf
file).
- FAST (Free
Assessment Summary Tool) and TooFAST
(a new version), from Bruce Ravelli, Mt. Royal
College.
- Web survey for student feedback, for classroom
assessment during the course of a term.
- Fully anonymous, no way to tell who has submitted an
evaluation, or how often. Not intended as an an
end-of-term course evaluation whose data become part of the salary,
promotion, and tenure process.
- Internet
Resources for Classroom Assessment Techniques, from Sinclair
Community College.
- Online version of the Teaching
Goals Inventory, from the University of Iowa.
- See Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook
for College Teachers (Angelo & Cross, 1988, 1993,
Jossey-Bass) for details on the TGI. The online version was created
with the authors' permission.
- Technology
Applied to Classroom Assessment, from the National Teaching and Learning
Forum.
- Links to online resources about classroom assessment
and technology-enhanced classroom assessment.
College
Portrait, see Voluntary System
of Accountability (VSA)
College
Results Online
- Searcheable database of graduation rates for four-year
colleges and universities. From the Education Trust; based on NCES data.
- 4, 5, and 6-year rates, plus trends over time and
freshman-to-sophomore retention, outbound transfer rates, and
gender/ethnicity breakdowns.
- User-selected group of institutions or individual
institution + database-generated comparison group based on
institutional characteristics..
Collegiate
Learning Assessment Project (CLA)
- Standardized assessment of general education skills
& abilities.
- Reports emphasize institutional
value-added.
- From the Council
for Aid to Education (CAE).
Commission
on the Future of Higher Education
- Charged by the U.S. Secretary of Education to develop a
national strategy for postsecondary education. The Commission met
during 2005-2006.
- Some parts of the final report and some
of the issue papers deal with assessment,
accountability, and accreditation (pdf
files).
Community College Survey of
Student Engagement (CCSSE)
- Nationally-normed survey of students' exposure to good
practices in undergraduate education.
- Information about the project and the survey.
- pdf demonstration versions of the
survey.
- Results: summaries and publications.
- CCSSE is designed for two-year institutions. The National Survey of Student Engagement
(NSSE) is a similar project for four-year institutions.
- Some institutions' assessment
sites include CCSSE reports.
Conferences: Lists of national and regional
assessment conferences and workshops
Consultants
Council
for Advancement of Standards in Higher Education
- Information about standards, guidelines, and assessment
guides for Student Affairs programs. The guides/standards themselves
are not available online.
Distance Education
EBI: Educational Benchmarking,
Inc
- Surveys for assessment in a variety of academic and
student-services areas. Analyses include comparisons with other
participating institutions.
- When last checked:
- Academic areas included business/management,
engineering, nursing, and teacher education.
- Student-services areas included the first-year
experience, fraternities/sororities, student housing, and student
unions/centers.
- The WESS system for web-based surveys can also be used to
develop & administer custom surveys.
The
Education Commission of the States (ECS) page has abstracts
of publications and information about ECS projects
in higher education and K-12 assessment, accountability, workplace
preparation, and other topics.
Educational Testing Service (ETS)
- TestLink
lets you search ETS's Test File for information about thousands of test
and research instruments.
EDUCAUSE
Transformative Assessment Project
- From EDUCAUSE's National Learning Infrastructure Initiative
(NLII). Note: The project is no longer active.
- Definitions and primary research questions.
- Links to related resources and readings.
Ethical standards for assessment (Some of
these are from an Assess-L discussion. Thanks to
Suzanne Garrison at Meredith College for initiating this thread.)
ERIC
(Education Resources Information Center)
- Searchable database with:
- Bibliographic information for hundreds of articles on
assessment, evaluation, statistics, and educational research.
- Downloadable full text (pdf files)
of many non-journal articles.
- A project of the US Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
- See Help for:
- General search tips.
- Information about facilitating searches with ERIC's Thesaurus.
- FAQs about the ERIC program.
- Includes material that was added while the database was
closed during 2004.
Faculty attitudes towards outcomes
assessment
- In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, select March 2005 and scroll down to
the thread Faculty attitudes toward student learning outcomes
assessment. Kay Schneider's entry in this thread includes a
link to Concordia College's survey of faculty attitudes about
assessment.
- Concordia's 2005
survey (pdf file) and a Powerpoint presentation
summarizing the results are also available (thanks, Kay!). Note:
You may need a recent version of Internet Explorer to view the
Powerpoint presentation.
The Flashlight
Program
- From the TLT
Group (Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group).
- Assessment tools (e.g., Flashlight
Online; templates; study packages), training, external
evaluation, and other forms of consulting to help institutions gather
information to improve educational uses of technology. Some sections of
the
online
handbook for Flashlight subscribersare available to the public; the
rest of the handbook is
restricted to Flashlight Program members.
- F-Light
online journal about the use of technology in education includes some
articles about outcomes assessment.
Glossaries: Assessment Terms
- Assessment in Higher Education
includes a list of glossaries.
- Assessment
and Accreditation Glossary, from California State University,
Stanislaus (pdf file).
- Assessment
Definitions, from California State University, Long Beach
- Assessment
Glossary, from Dartmouth College
- Assessment
Glossary, from Millersville University.
- Assessment
Glossary, from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
- Assessment
Glossary of Terms, from California State University,
Sacramento.
- Assessment
Terminology, from Northeastern Illinois University's Student
Affairs Assessment Committee (pdf file).
- Assessment
Terminology: A Glossary of Useful Terms.
- Assessment
Terms, from Northern Illinois University.
- Assessment
Terms, from Northwestern Health Sciences University
- Beyond
Confusion: An Assessment Glossary, from Association of
American Colleges & Universities Peer Review..
- CRESST
Assessment Glossary, from UCLA's National
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing.
- Dictionary
of Student Outcome Assessment. Searcheable. From James
Madison University.
- Glossary,
from Borough of Manhattan Community College's General Education
Assessment Resource Center.
- Glossary,
from the Division of Student Affairs at the
University of Georgia.
- Glossary,
from Miami University.
- Glossary,
from the University of Texas at Arlington (pdf file)
- Glossary,
from the University of Texas at Austin
- Glossary
of Assessment Terms, from the American Public
University System
- Glossary
of Assessment Terms, from Indiana University Southeast
- Glossary
of Assessment Terms, from SUNY-Potsdam (pdf
document).
- Glossary
of Assessment Terms, from the University of Maryland
University College (pdf file).
- Glossary
of Evaluation Terms (searcheable) and Teacher
Evaluation Glossary from The Evaluation Center at Western
Michigan University.
- Glossary
of Outcomes Assessment Terms, from Montgomery College.
- Glossary
of Useful Terms, from the Massachussets Dept. of Education's
System for Adult Basic Education (SABES).
- Local
Lexicon of Assessment Terms, from California State
University, Fresno.
- Learning
Outcomes Assessment Glossary, from California Polytechnic
State University, San Luis Obispo.
- Student
Outcomes Assessment Review and Report: Key Terms, from
Tidewater Community College.
- Unit-Level
Effectiveness Assessment Documentation Terms, from Austin
Community College (pdf file).
Grades as
outcomes assessment
- "We already give grades. Isn't that enough?" The issue's
addressed in:
- Primary Trait Analysis is an outcomes-assessment approach
to grading. An overview is available from Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville.
Graduate
program assessment
- Some of the individual
institutions' assessment-related pages (below) include
include assessment plans and processes for graduate programs.
- Links
to information about graduate-program assessment, from the University
of Louisiana at Monroe. (Note: Some of these links
are no longer available, including American University's bibliography
on graduate assessment.)
- Assessment and Review of Graduate Programs: A
policy statement.
From the Council of
Graduate Schools (CGS). (Not available online. To order the
policy
statement, select CGS Publications / Online Bookstore,
then New
Releases.)
- Conference presentations on graduate-program assessment
Impact of assessment
- Engineering
Change: ABET study of how EC2000 standards and assessment
requirements affect Engineering programs and students (pdf
file).
- The
Results are In: How NCATE's standards and assessment
requirements affect Education programs and students (pdf
file).
- ASSESS
discussion-list threads on this topic (see the list archive):
- October 2006 thread Resources
on Impact of Assessment on Learning and Teaching, initiated
by Sean
McKitrick of Binghampton University.
- August 2007 threads Outcomes to the
Assessment Process?
initiated by Ken Weiner at Montgomery College, and Assessment
in
Higher Education contributed by Richard Hake.
- April 2008 threads Evidence of impact of student learning assessment? and Evidence of impact of student learning assessment, initiated by Lois Myers.
International
Center for Student Success & Institutional Accountability
(ICSSIA)
- Hosts communities of practice (online discussion lists)
including the Practical Assessment
Community of Practice.
- Current research projects include a searcheable database of
information about (some) nationally-standardized surveys and tests.
- Resources:
- Still to come: Links to other
assessment resources.
- Beginning in 2008, ICSSIA will begin managing the annual International
Assessment & Retention Conference.
Higher
Education Resource Hub
- For assessment resources, select Assessment in
Higher Ed.
Higher
Education Research Institute (HERI)
- A project of the Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies at UCLA.
- CIRP Surveys and Services: Information
from and about
nationally-standardized student surveys.
- CIRP Freshman Survey: profile of
entering freshman class.
- CSS College Senior Survey: follow
up of CIRP cohorts.
- YFCY Your First College Year
Institutional support for outcomes assessment
- Assessment directors' salaries
- In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, select January 2008 and scroll down
to the thread Assessment salary survey. Thanks to
Erin Frew, Matt Fuller, and Margie Hobbs for initiating and managing
the survey. Erin's initial post has information about the survey and
includes pdf tables of results.
- Institutional
support for enhancing student assessment
- Research report from the National
Center for Postsecondary Improvement (Project 5.2). Includes
- a literature review,
- results from a national survey of colleges and
universities, and
- a description of site-visit research.
- Note: The project is no longer
active.
- The Assessment "handbooks"
section includes rubrics and suggestions that can help evaluate your institution's
assessment practices.
- Staffing
assessment
- See the ASSESS discussion-list threads on assessment committees.
- Should there be a central "assessment office?" In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, see the:
- April 1998 thread Coordinating Assessment,
initiated by Kafkaz.
- January 2008 thread program
assessment coordinators, initiated by Mary Kropiewnicki.
- How large should an assessment office be? In the
ASSESS
discussion-list archive, see the November 2006
thread Information about
assessment office
personnel compared to university size, initiated by Ray Van
Dyke.
- What qualifications should an assessment director have?
In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, see the January
2008 thread Fwd: RE: Salary survey,
directors of
assessment. Start with Stephen Maack's January 25th post.
- Survey of Assessment Practices in Higher Education
- From Primary Research Group, Inc.
- Benchmarking
study with information from 80+ colleges & universities on
institutional support for assessment, plus methods and impacts.
- Print and PDF versions of this report are very expensive.
- Survey of institutions' support for outcomes assessment
- In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, see the February 2008
thread Culture of assessment survey results.
The initial post by Abdou Ndoye includes a pdf
file of results.
- The call for survey responses was in the January 2008
thread Culture of assessment survey.
The Kelley
Center for Assessment and Planning Support (KCAPS) hosts
conferences and on-line discussions about assessment and institutional
planning and offers consultation on assessment for individual campuses.
Knowing
What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment
- Review of the literature on assessing learning, from the
National Research Council's Committee on the Foundations of Assessment.
- K-12 as well as higher-education assessment.
- How People
Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School is a related
review of cognitive science and the biology of learning, from the NRC's
Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning and the Committee
on Learning Research and Educational Practice.
- Note: Both books can be read online.
League for
Innovation in the Community College: 21st Century Learning
Outcomes Project
- Information about a multi-institution project to define and
document student learning outcomes.
- Links to participating institutions' project websites and
to other resources. The project is no longer active, but some of the
institutions' websites are still available.
Measuring
Up: State-by-state "report card" for higher education
National
Assessment Governing Board
- Information about the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP). These are assessments of students in grades 4, 8, and
12, not of college students. Relevant to assessment in higher education
as illustration of a current national model for assessing student
learning.
- The NCES site "The Nation's
Report Card" has details about and reports from NAEP
assessments in various subject areas.
- Other sites includes information about
the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
The National
Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
The National Center for Higher
Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) page has information
about publications and services for assessment and other
higher-education areas.
- Assessing
Assessment: Successes, Failures, and the Future overviews the
state of higher education outcomes assessment (this pdf
file will open in a separate window). Presentation by Peter Ewell,
NCHEMS vice-president, at the
2007 IUPUI
Assessment Institute. Ewell's chapter An emerging
scholarship: A brief history of assessment has details and
references (in Banta, T.W. & Assoc. [2002], Building
a scholarship of assessment. Jossey-Bass).
The National
Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing
(CRESST) page at UCLA's Graduate School of Education &
Information Studies has mostly K-12 material, including papers,
technical reports, and links to related sites.
National
Community College Benchmark Project
- Participating institutions can compare outcomes results
with those of other participants. The data are not available to
non-participants.
- The site includes:
- A description of the project and the benchmarks used.
Some of the benchmarks are outcomes assessment results, some are other
institutional-research data.
- An example of the report that is prepared for each
institution.
- A list of participating institutions and information
about enrolling in the project.
National Postsecondary
Education Cooperative (NPEC)
- A project of the National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES).
- NPEC student outcomes projects focus
on assessment policy, methods, coordination, and/or data use.
- pdf files of papers from some NPEC
projects on assessment are available.
- Definitions and assessment
methods for various general-education areas.
- Answers
(Accessing National Surveys With Electronic Research Sources)
- Online tools for information about national datasets of
institutional data (IPEDS, etc.). What surveys are there? What do they
ask? How are standard variables defined? Etc.
- Annotated bibliographies on developing surveys and on
using national datasets.
National
Study of Living-Learning Programs
- Information about this project on the effectiveness of
living-learning programs, and results from completed studies.
National Survey of
Student Engagement (NSSE)
Nationally Standardized Instruments
- A
Culture of Evidence: Critical Features of Assessments for Postsecondary
Student Learning, from ETS (pdf file).
Information about (some) instruments for general education skills,
major-field assessment, student engagement, and "soft" (noncognitive)
skills. Includes both ETS and other providers' instruments.
- Inventory
of Higher Education Assessment Instruments, from the National
Center for Postsecondary Improvement (NCPI) and the Stanford Institute
for Higher Education Research (SIHER). Information about instruments
for institutional effectiveness, basic skills (general education),
affective development, and major-field assessment.
- ICSSIA Assessment
Instrument Project: Searcheable database of information about
(some) nationally-standardized surveys and tests. The executive
summary (pdf file) has additional
information about each instrument.
- Measuring
Quality: Choosing Among Surveys and Other Assessments of College Quality
(pdf file). Describes and compares nationally
standardized assessment instruments.
- NPEC
Sourcebooks on Assessment include definitions,
information about tests and other instruments. Volumes include Definitions
and Assessment Methods for: (pdf files)
- Notes:
- Instrument names and details have changed since some of
these reports were published. E.g., ETS'
Academic Profile is now the MAPP
(Measure of Academic Progress & Proficiency) and HERI's College Student
Survey is now the College Senior Survey.
If the reports' links don't forward you to the latest versions, search
the publishers' sites.
- Instruments too recent to
be included in reports include:
Online Discussion Lists
- Subscribing to email discussion lists
- Send an email message to the listserver for the list to
which you want to subscribe. The message should say
subscribe list-name your-first-name
your-last-name
(e.g.: subscribe assess John Smith)
and have nothing in the Subject: line and no "signature" at the bottom.
- After you've subscribed, send the one-word message
help
to get a list of commands you can use to suspend mail while you're on
vacation, unsubscribe from the list, etc.
- ASSESS
- Topic: assessment in higher education.
- Listserver: listserv@lsv.uky.edu
(University of Kentucky-Lexington).
- The searcheable archive
also has an online form you can use to join the list.
- COMFO
(College Outcomes Measurement Forum Online)
- EVALTALK
- Topic: Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of
programs, policies, personnel, products, and organizations to improve
their effectiveness. Many threads relevant to outcomes assessment.
- From the American
Evaluation Association.
- Lots of traffic. To avoid clogging your inbox, have
your email program automatically put Evaltalk messages into a separate
folder/mailbox.
- Listserver: listserv@ua1vm.ua.edu
(University of Alabama)
- The searcheable archive
also has an online form you can use to join the list. You must be a
list member to search the archive.
- FYA-List
- Practical
Assessment COP (Community of
Practice)
- This was an AAHE COP. AAHE's
website is no longer available. Thanks to Bob Mundhenk, Ray Somera,
Ruth Andes, and the folks at Bakersfield College for reviving Practical
Assessment.
- In July 2007, ICSSIA
began hosting Practical Assessment.
- Go to Communities of Practice,
log in, and select the Practical Assessment Community of
Practice.
- There's a signup procedure for
new participants' login.
- ASSESS-W
- PORTFOLIO-L
- Assessment in Higher Education's
page of discussion
lists has information about other assessment-related lists.
So does the Higher Education Resource Hub's list of assessment resources
(select Assessment in Higher Ed from the menu at
the left side of the Hub's home page and scroll down to Assessment
Electronic Discussion Lists).
Portfolio Assessment
- Extensive list of links to information about alternative
assessment and electronic portfolios, from Helen Barrett at
the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
- Catalyst
Portfolio Project Builder, from the University of Washington.
- Diagnostic
Digital Portfolio at Alverno
College. Enter and Demo
are restricted to Alverno students, faculty, & staff.
- Elon
University student portfolios. Information for students, with
online examples of various types of portfolios.
- Epsilen
ePortfolio, from Bowling Green State University.
- Günter
Krumme in the University of Washington Geography Department
has posted information about learning portfolios at UW, in the
department, and at other institutions.
- Inter/National
Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research campus-based
research projects on whether & how the use of portfolios
affects student learning.
- Kalamazoo
College web-based portfolio, including examples and links to
Internet resources.
- myMAPP
(Mapping Academic Performance through e-Portfolios), from the
University of Nebraska at Omaha.
- Open
Source Portfolio (OSP), an open source software project
coordinated with Sakai,
an open source learning environment (course management system) project.
- Up-to-date information includes OSP
documentation. The OSP 2.0 Demo site was not
available when last checked.
- The article
mentioned in the University of Minnesota Electronic Portfolio entry,
below, includes information about OSP (p. 9).
- University of Minnesota's Electronic
Portfolio. Development of the University of Minnesota's ePortfolio
system is described in the 2003 Educause article Electronic
portfolios need standards to thrive (pdf
file, requires Adobe Reader 5.0
or better).
- RosE
Portfolio from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. The demo
and the student and instructor Help manuals (pdf
files) were not available when last checked.
- Truman
State University portfolio project: FAQ, portfolio prompts,
and portfolio guidelines for students and faculty.
- University
of Denver Portfolio Community. Guest registration allows
browsing.
- University
of Minnesota Duluth ePortfolio, including
examples and resources for students and faculty. Click on the Navigate
menu's cubes to see what's available. (Yes, they're cubes. Try it and
see.)
- Commercial products to manage on-line portfolios
- Angel
ePortfolio assessment and management tool, can link to
Angel's learning management tools.
- Blackboard
Portfolio, part of Blackboard's Academic Suite.
- CampusTools HigherEd
and CampusWide from TK20 have
portfolio tools as part of a system to gather and organize assessment
information.
- Chalk
& Wire's e-Portfolio.
- iWebfolio,
from Nuventive.
- TaskStream's
e-portfolio assessment tools.
- Also see Helen Barrett's list of
commercial e-portfolio vendors.
- In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive, select May 2005 and scroll down to Electronic
Portfolio Software and Assessment, Renee Corbin's list of
e-portfolio products. Open the message and then click [text/html]
at the bottom of the page for a version with "live" (clickable) links.
Practical Assessment,
Research, and Evaluation
- On-line journal, since 1989.
- Search by title, author, descriptor, keyword.
Qualitative data analysis methods and tools
- In the ASSESS
discussion-list archive select September 2007 and scroll down
to
the thread Qualitative Data Analysis Question,
initiated by Mitzi Lewis. In October 2007, scroll down to the
thread Qualitative Data Analysis Question - Summary
for Mitzi's summary of responses and some more discussion.
Service-learning and assessment
Software for web surveys
- Association
for Survey Computing: Register of Software for Statistical and Social
Survey Analysis: Well-annotated, easy to use listings from a
regularly-updated database. Not limited to products for Web-based
surveying. Start with the list of features, then
go to "Data Capture" and then to "Web Interviewing."
- Online
Assessment Tools: List compiled by Northern Arizona
University Office of Academic Assessment.
- Includes links to other lists of online assessment
tools.
- See the Student
assessment of courses and faculty section, below, for
additional notes on FAST (Free Assessment Summary
Tool) and SALG (Student Assessment of Learning
Gains).
- On-Line
Survey Tools. Annotated list from ACPA's Commission on
Assessment for Student Development. Select Commission
Resources, then Assessment Instruments,
then On-Line Survey Tools.
- Software and survey-hosting services not included in the
lists above: (Some of these
are from ASSESS
posts by
Renee Corbin at Western Carolina University and Lib Pruden at Union
Institute. This is just a
list. It's not exhaustive, and it doesn't imply a
recommendation or evaluation.)
- Adaptex
Assessment System, from James Madison University.
- AskAnywhere,
from Senecio.
- Asset
(Academic Survey System
and Evaluation Tool, from
the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at Seton Hall
University.
- CampusTools HigherEd
and CampusWide from TK20 have survey
tools as part of a system to gather and organize assessment information.
- Checkbox
from Prezza Technologies has software for your own campus' servers as
well as a hosted version.
- CoursEval3,
from Academic Management Systems, is designed for course, faculty, and
peer evaluations but can also be used for other small surveys.
- eListen
from Scantron.
- EvalTools from
Makteam Software. The examples are for engineering programs doing
outcomes assessment for ABET accreditation, but EvalTools surveys can
be used for any academic program.
- Flashlight
Online, from the TLT Group.
- LiveText Accreditation Management System includes a survey tool.
- PollCat.
Free survey-creation, hosting, and summary reports for small surveys.
There are fees for larger surveys, custom surveys, and detailed data.
- SmartSurveys
and Surveyo,
from mySmartSolutions.
- Survey
Connect from DigitalMeasures.
- SurveyTracker
Plus Email/Web from Pearson handles online surveys as well as
scannable forms.
- TestPilot,
from ClearLearning.
- WESS
(Web-Enabled Survey System), from EBI.
- Also see
Yahoo's current links on the topic. Some of these are survey
software, some are survey-hosting services.
- The Web Corner
column Using the Web for tests and surveys has
links to survey software and hosting services.
- Some threads in the ASSESS
discussion list archive
have users' comments about web survey software or hosting services:
- December 2004 thread Question Web survey
software, initiated by Ted Micceri.
- The October 2005 threads Online survey
comparison matrix
and Online survey hosts include
Gavin Henning's Excel file of information
and user comments (thanks for compiling this,
Gavin!).
- July 2007 threads electronic survey
and thanks, initiated by Elizabeth Pruden.
- The August 2007 threads Consultant for
online survey
and Consultant for online survey: Listserv feedback compiled,
initiated by Brian Bogert.
- Online articles about Web-based surveying
SHEEO: State Higher Education
Executive Officers
- National
Commission on Accountability in Higher Education
- Project to review states' experience using
accountability systems to improve higher education performance.
- Network
News newsletter:
- Focus on Educational Accountability
(April 2005). Recommendations include coordinated emphasis on learning
outcomes and assessment. (pdf file)
- Focus on Assessment of Student Learning
(January 2002). State and national perspectives on assessment. Links to
web resources. (pdf file)
- Focus on Teacher Preparation (May
1999). Includes information on existing or proposed accreditation
approaches, links to Web resources. (pdf file)
- Focus on Performance Management
(February 1998). State performance indicators and performance-based
funding initiatives. (Not online but available from
SHEEO.)
Standards
for Success
- AAU/Pew project to
- identify knowledge/skills for success in entry-level
college/university courses and
- map correspondence between those standards and state
high school assessments.
- Downloadable versions of
- the standards for general academic areas (English,
math, social sciences, etc.).
- "Mixed Messages" report of initial research on the
correspondence with high school assessments.
State and Regional Assessment Organizations
- New
England Educational Assessment Network
- Information about NEEAN.
- Activities and events including information
about Dialogues in the Disciplines
workshops
on assessment in specific academic disciplines. (Dialogues
reports are available to NEEAN members.)
- New
Mexico Higher Education Assessment Association
- Information about NMHEAA and statewide assessment
conferences.
- Virginia
Assessment Group
- About VAG.
- Conferences, workshops, and session handouts (pdf,
Powerpoint, and Word
files).
- Online journal Research & Practice in
Assessment.
- Assessment-related employment
notices from Virginia colleges & universities.
- Links to other assessment resources.
StudentTracker,
from the National Student Clearinghouse
- Tracks students' enrollment across institutions, regardless
of state and college/university-system boundaries.
- Approximately 3,000 institutions participate, ranging
from community colleges to Ivy League doctoral/research-extensive
universities.
- Only participating institutions have access to the
Clearinghouse's services. The fee for Student Tracker
depends on your institution's enrollment.
Tools to Help Organize Assessment
Information
- Assessment
Management Software. This 2006 ASSESS
post from Margie Hobbs at the University of Mississippi includes a Word
document with information from a number of vendors. (Thanks, Margie.) A
link to download the document is at the bottom of the archived message.
The ASSESS archive has earlier posts in this thread from folks who have
used some of the products.
- Blackboard
Outcomes System. Platform for assessment processes,
information, and reports. Integrated with the Blackboard
Academic Suite for course information, surveys, document and
portfolio management, and user-community interaction.
- eLumen
Achievement database for assessment processes, rubrics,
results, and reports. Select How eLumen Achievement Models
the Essential Process for annotated screen shots.
- CampusTools
HigherEd and CampusWide from Tk20 include
tools for
electronic portfolios and online surveys.
- Institutional
Effectiveness Associates offer guidebooks, workshops, and
organizing worksheets.
- LiveText Accreditation Management System for collecting data and organizing outcomes, rubrics, results, etc.
- myMAPP
(Mapping Academic Performance through e-Portfolios), from the
University of Nebraska at Omaha.
- OATS (Online Assessment Tracking System)
and SODS (SACS Online Documentation System) from Georgia
Institute of Technology's Office of Assessment. Both programs
are available for download by other institutions. An OATS
user guide (pdf file) and a SODS
demo are available.
- openIGOR: A free
Linux-based open-source program to manage information about program
outcomes and assessment-related documents. From Coker
College.
- TaskStream's
Accountability Management System, competency assessment, and
resource/communications management tools.
- The Teacher Education Assessment System (TEAS),
the Education Program
Identification Framework (EPIF), and the CEA-Candidate Tracking
(CEA-CAT), from the Center for
Education
Assessment, facilitate NCATE
and state-level education accreditation reviews. They can also be used
to
organize program assessment information in other academic
areas. Select Software.
- ThinkTank,
from GroupSystems, facilitates collaboration and records and stores
information from assessment group meetings.
- TracDat
database for assessment processes, information, and reports. From Nuventive
.
- TrueOutcomes
Assessment Manager keeps track of course-level learning
outcomes and
can create a course*outcomes matrix.
- Waypoint
Outcomes keeps track of assignment-level outcomes within and
across courses. From Subjective Metrics. Note:
this site disables your browser's (B)ack button.
- WEAVEonline
database for assessment processes, information, and reports. Originally
developed at Virginia
Commonwealth University.
TRIADS:
Assessment of Learning Outcomes
- TRIpartate Assessment
Delivery System: A joint project of the
University of Liverpool, the University of Derby, and the Open
University.
- TRIADS Engine: authorware for
developing online assessments.
- Sample learning outcomes (for earth
science programs).
- TRIADS activities and implementations.
Urban
Universities Portfolio Project
- Project funded by Pew Charitable Trusts, cosponsored by
AAHE.
- 6 urban comprehensive universities.
- Specifying and communicating institutional
characteristics and effectiveness, including undergraduate learning
outcomes.
- Overview, project plans, institution profiles and
snapshots, preliminary portfolios.
- Statistical
portrait project (PUMA: Portrait of Universities
with Metropolitan Alliances).
- Also see assessment pages from
participating institutions:
VaNTH ERC
Assessment & Evaluation Projects
- VaNTH ERC: an engineering research center in bioengineering
and learning sciences, from Vanderbilt University, Northwestern
University, the University of Texas at Austin and the Health Science
and Technology Program of Harvard and MIT.
- The Research / Thrusts in assessment
& evaluation, learning technology,
and learning science have information about
projects that link assessment with knowledge about how
people learn.
Voluntary
System of Accountability (VSA)
- College Portrait: Definitions and
web-reporting template
for college/university characteristics including retention &
progress rates, general-education learning outcomes, and
student
experiences and engagement.
- Innovations include reporting cross-institutional
retention/progress, based on National
Student Clearinghouse data, and common reporting formats for
results from specific sets of standardized tests and surveys.
- A joint project of AASCU
and NASULGC.
Currently,
only member institutions may participate.
What
is "Good"
Assessment? A Synthesis of Principles of Good Practice (pdf
file)
- Five dimensions of good assessment practice, summarized
from
national organizations and assessment experts. With references to and
summaries of the sources.
- From Linda Suskie at MSA-CHE.
What
Outcomes Assessment Misses
- From TLT Group's Flashlight
program, so it focuses on assessment about technology -- but the
general points apply to any assessment project.
Return to the index
How to develop a campus or departmental
assessment process
- Academic
Assessment Plan Submission Guide with overview and pros/cons
of various assessment strategies (Kent State University; some html
pages, some Word documents)
- Administrative
Unit Assessment Handbook (University of Central Florida, pdf
file).
- A
Guide for Faculty and Programs, (Northern Arizona
University, pdf file)
- As
Easy as Apple Pie: A Baker's Guide to Assessment Plan
Development (Georgia Institute of Technology)
- Assessing
the Effectiveness of Instructional Units and Assessing
the Effectiveness of Non-Instructional Support Offices
(Austin Community College, pdf files).
- Assessment
and Quality Enhancement for Institutional Effectiveness at TCU,
from Texas Christian University (pdf file)
- Assessment:
An Institution-Wide Process to Improve and Support Student Learning
(College of DuPage, pdf file)
- Assessment
CyberGuide for Learning Goals & Outcomes in the Undergraduate
Psychology Major (American Psychological Association)
- Assessment
for people who don't have enough time to do assessment
workshop (Concordia College)
- Assessment Guide (access this guide from
the Assessment Coordinators' section of the University
of Virginia's Assessment site; the pdf
file
opens in a separate PDF-reader window)
- Assessment
Guidebook for Departments (Bridgewater State College)
- Assessment
Handbook (Indiana University Southeast; individual chapters
are pdf files)
- Assessment
Handbook (Morningside College). Chapters are individual pdf
files.
- Assessment
Handbook (Paradise Valley Community College; scroll down to
menu of handbook chapters [pdf files])
- Assessment
Handbook (Skidmore College)
- Assessment
Handbook (University of Michigan College of Engineering)
- Assessment
Handbooks: Core
Courses and General Education and Degree
Programs (University of
Arkansas at Little Rock)
- Assessment
Options: Methods of Collecting Evidence (Arkansas Tech
University, pdf file)
- Assessment
Primer (University of Connecticut). To see the whole
handbook, click Start Here and follow the Next
Page links at the bottom of each page. Some pages include
links to more detailed pdf documents.
- Assessment
Process Handbook (Indiana Wesleyan University, pdf
file)
- Assessment
Workbook (Ball State University, pdf
files)
- Assessment
Workbook (CSU Stanislaus, pdf file)
- A
Field-Tested Learning Assessment Guide (FLAG) for Science,
Math, Engineering, and Technology Faculty
- Busy
Chairperson's Guide to Assessment (Southeast Missouri State
Univ.)
- Course-based
Review and Assessment and Program-Based
Review and Assessment (University of Massachusetts Amherst, pdf
files)
- Creating
an Effective Assessment Plan for the Sociology Major (pdf
file). From the American Sociological Association. Examples may
emphasize sociology programs, but this is a general handbook with
information useful to any program.
- Developing
Academic Program Assessment Plans (Western Kentucky
University)
- Effectiveness
Planning Manual (Coker College, Word
document)
- FAQ
from the University of Texas System includes many common questions
about jargon, how assessing a program is different from other
assessment that faculty do, etc.
- Search the FYA-List
archive for essays by Marc Chun that use pop culture to illuminate
common issues in developing and implementing assessment programs. Also
see Marc's 2002 article Looking
where the light is better: A review of the literature on assessing
higher education quality.
- Guide
to Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes (Diablo Valley
College)
- Guide
to Outcomes Assessment (San Jose State University, pdf
file)
- Guide
to Student Outcomes Assessment (California State University,
Fresno)
- Guidelines
for the Assessment of Learning Outcomes (Arizona State
University, pdf file)
- Handbooks
for Program Assessment in Academic
Units and Administrative/Educational
Support Units (Western Carolina University, pdf
file)
- Institutional
Effectiveness and Assessment Principles, Procedures and Resource Manual
(Eastern Kentucky University, pdf file)
- Learning
Outcomes Assessment Planning Guide (California Polytechnic
State University)
- Managing
a Program of Outcomes Assessment. A workshop presented by
Fred Volkwein at the 1998 Association for Institutional Research annual
forum.
- Manual:
Assessment as Scholarship and Learning (Norfolk State
University. Note: This pdf file
is very large [20MB] and takes a long time to load. The title page
looks "landscape" but the text pages are in "portrait" format so you
don't have to rotate the view.)
- Outcomes
Assessment Manual (Quinebaug Valley Community College).
- Practitioner's
Manual (Texas A&M International University, pdf
file)
- Program
Assessment Handbook (University of Central Florida, pdf
file)
- SAAC
Made Easy (Student Academic Achievement Committee guidebook
for course-level assessment, Estrella Mountain Community College; pdf
file)
- Six
Steps to Continuous Improvement of Student Learning (Kent
State University).
- Student
Learning Outcomes Assessment Handbook with a "Cliff
Notes" quick overview (Montgomery College, pdf
files)
- Teaching
& Learning Resources: Assessment & Outcomes
(Western Washington University)
- Tools
and Techniques for Program
Improvement and for Course
Improvement (Western Washington
University, pdf files, adapted from the University of Massachussetts at Amherst
handbooks.)
- UW-Madison
Assessment Manual (Univ. of Wisconson-Madison)
- Unit
Effectiveness Process Assessment Handbook (University of
Texas at Arlington, pdf file; if you use the
Firefox browser you'll need Adobe
Acrobat Reader 8.0 or higher to load this file properly)
- WEAVE
Quality Enhancement Guide (Virginia Commonwealth University; pdf
file)
- Writing
Student Learning Assessment Reports (American Public
University System)
Evaluating your
institution's assessment practices
Many of the
individual institutions' assessment-related pages (below)
have good "how to do it" tips.
Return to the index
Many of the individual
institutions' assessment-related pages (below) include
discipline-specific assessment plans. Also see the examples
by specific disciplines in Bucknell
University's, Florida
Atlantic University's, Marquette
University's, Skidmore
College's, the University
at Albany's, the
University
of North Carolina-Greensboro's and the University
of South Carolina Aiken's lists of assessment resources. (You
may need to scroll down on some of these pages to get to the resources by
discipline.)
Nationally-standardized assessments of undergraduate
majors
Self
Assessment of Graduate Capabilities
- From Griffith University (Queensland, Australia).
- Helps students evaluate their development of general skills
needed for graduate study.
- Teaching tools to foster development of these skills.
Assessing general
education knowledge and skill areas
- Note: some of these resources mention ETS's Academic
Profile. See ETS's site for information about the
AP's replacement, the Measure of Academic Proficiency and
Progress (MAPP).
- AALE's standards for
accreditation of liberal-arts institutions and programs.
- An annotated
list of Critical Thinking tests from CriticalThinking.net.
- Assessment resources from Florida
Atlantic University.
- Assessment of Gen
Ed Science Requirements.
- 2002 ASSESS
discussion-list post from Linda Suskie (then at Towson
University, now at MSA-CHE).
- Click [text/html] at the bottom of
the page for a wordwrapped version.
- The links are not "live" -- you
must cut-&-paste them into your browser.
- GOAL
(General Education Outcomes Assessment of Learning) from CAI.
- Guidelines and methods for assessing oral
communication, from the National Communication Association.
- Information literacy
- Mathematics: see STEM
disciplines, below.
- NPEC Sourcebook
on Assessment (pdf documents):
- Volume
1: Definitions and Assessment Methods for Critical Thinking,
Problem Solving, and Writing.
- Volume
2: Selected Institutions Utilizing Assessment Results.
- The
Literacy of America's College Students (pdf
file). Results from the National Survey of America's College Students
(NSACS). From the American
Institutes for Research.
- State
Council of Higher Education for Virginia reports
for each Virginia public institution about
assessment of undergraduate competency in various general education
areas.
- Standards
for the English Language Arts, from the National Council of
Teachers of English (NCTE)
and the International Reading Association
(IRA).
- UniLOA
(the University Learning Outcomes Assessment), a standardized
instrument for critical thinking, communication, and
personal-development skills.
Business/Management
Chemistry
- The American Chemical Society's Chem Ed
exams in various subareas.
Economics
Engineering
Geography
- G-LOOP:
University of Washington's Geography Learning Objectives and Outcomes
Project.
Health Sciences
- EBI's surveys for
assessing nursing programs.
Information Literacy:
see general education, above.
Languages
- American
Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
- Under Professional Development,
select Certified Proficiency Testing Programs for
information about
ACTFL's programs for testing language competencies.
- Under Publications, see the Proficiency
Guidelines and the executive summary of the Standards
for Foreign Language Learning for details of ACFTL's
competency standards.
- Common
European Framework of Reference for Languages
- For comparing language-competency standards across
national education systems.
- From the Council of Europe's Directorate of Education.
Mathematics: see STEM disciplines, below.
Psychology
Sociology
STEM
disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, &
Mathematics)
- Assessment of Student Learning in College
Mathematics: Towards Improved Programs and Courses, published
jointly by AIR
and MAA. Part of
a new AIR
series on assessment in the disciplines.
- Assessment
in Mathematics Teaching
- Focus is K-12 but some information, methods,
references/links appropriate for college-level courses.
- From The
Math Forum at Drexel University.
- See Engineering,
above.
- Evaluating
and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics
- Literature review from the National Research Council's
Committee on Recognizing, Evaluating, Rewarding, and Developing
Excellence in Teaching of Undergraduate Science, Mathematics,
Engineering, and Technology.
- Scientific
Abilities Project
- From Rutgers University's Physics and Astronomy
Education Research group.
- Assessment tasks, rubrics for assessing scientific
abilities, and presentations on assessment of scientific abilities
(pdf files).
- State
Council of Higher Education for Virginia reports for each
Virginia public institution include
assessment of undergraduate competency in quantitative
and scientific reasoning and technol