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Bridging diverse institutions, multiple engineering departments, and industry: A case study in assessment planning
Journal of Engineering Education, Apr 1998 by McMartin, Flora, Van Duzer, Eric, Agogino, Alice
Key to these efforts was the decision by the Synthesis Coalition to hire an assessment director with a background in program evaluation and assessment. This decision expanded the commitment to collaboration to include engineering and education schools. The assessment staff focused their expertise and knowledge about assessment planning, methodologies, techniques, and implementation to craft the Coalition's commitment to the "who," "what," and "how" of assessment. At the same time, the other collaborators focused their expertise and knowledge on the "what" and "how" of the assessment process.
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Despite all of this effort to reduce the demands on faculty, assessment does take time, particularly if it is used effectively to improve courses. As we launch into the implementation phase, we have been careful to design the process to satisfy more than our specific Synthesis Coalition research questions. Once the process is in place, the results can be used to satisfy many of the ABET learning criteria as well as provide valuable feedback and validation for individual faculty classroom practices.
Assessment cannot, however, be left to the faculty alone to implement. Campus administrators who are responsible to implement the new ABET criteria for accreditation have been essential in bringing assessment activities to the campus and ensuring that the results they produce are used to improve student learning, teaching, and the curriculum. While assessment works best if faculty driven, the results must be used for improvement purposes.19
Faculty, administrators, indeed whole offices on campuses are devoted to collecting information about our students, faculty, courses, and alumni. Only recently has information about learning and teaching been added to that list. Much of the information collected is used more (ironically it seems) by those outside of the institution, e.g., trustees, regents, state legislators. Assessment to be useful or meaningful must be feedback to its primary users faculty and students. Administrative support and structures are necessary to ensure that this occurs.
Helping faculty develop the expertise in assessment began a year ago when we asked them to be explicit in the goals they wanted to measure. The planning process will continue until a core of expertise exists on each campus. (In the final year of the assessment plan, analysis will shift from a central team composed of stakeholders from every group, to the campuses themselves.) Once the awareness is raised, the results used, and the faculty prepared, institutionalization of assessment as an integral part of academic life will have moved considerably forward.
VIII. CONCLUSION
Assessment planning at all levels (course, department, college, or coalition) requires attention to detail, clear roles for participants, timely follow through, and active listening. In short, it requires all the characteristics of good teamwork. Faculty and administrators, students, industry representatives, and assessment practitioners all share the responsibility to determine what our students are learning (and what they aren't learning) to improve our courses, curricula, and institutions so that that learning continues to take place and grow. By working towards these goals, the Synthesis Coalition crafted a plan that measures the effects of their reforms and gives faculty new ways to use existing classroom activities to assess the kinds of student learning required by modem engineering. Ultimately, the assessment tools and processes devised by the Synthesis Coalition are readily adaptable to the course, major and departmental levels.
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