Best Practice Capsule—Engaging Faculty in Learning Outcomes

Georgia Institute of Technology’s Online Assessment Plan Builder

Reducing Faculty Time and Expertise Burdens

Member Challenge
Many universities are struggling to meet regional accreditor expectations that all departments explicitly define and regularly assess student learning outcomes. Schools face resistance from both ends of the faculty experience curve: 20% of departments (disproportionately in liberal arts) have no tradition or expertise in assessment ("we don’t want to assess") while another 20% (engineering, nursing, education) already maintain sophisticated assessment processes for external certification and express frustration at having to duplicate effort for institutional accreditation ("we don’t want to re-assess").

Innovation: A Standardized Intranet-Based Assessment Documentation Tool
To minimize time and expertise burdens on faculty while achieving 100% departmental adoption of accreditation-ready assessment plans, Georgia Tech’s assessment office developed an intranet-based template through which departments can document outcomes assessment activities. Departments with robust assessment plans already in place can cut-and-paste into a standardized, accreditation-ready format, reducing time spent on documentation. The tool also reduces expertise burdens by allowing departments with minimal or no assessment plans to fill out as much of the template as possible, with the option of pressing a help button for just-in-time assessment tutorials on assessment basics such as writing learning outcomes designing measurement regimens. Faculty still in need of coaching are prompted to schedule appointments with the assessment office.

Georgia Tech has made the Online Plan Builder available as an open-source tool that any higher education institution may download and use free of charge; the University of Connecticut and University of Texas are two schools reporting high satisfaction (with minimal cost and complexity) implementing the tool.