Q: Your campus has successfully launched assessment projects in close collaboration with faculty to ultimately identify and respond to concerns to better support student success. Do you have advice for other campuses seeking to build this collaborative relationship?
A: Our institution worked hard in the past few years to develop a culture where faculty and staff are on the same team. For assessment staff, I would say to look for ways to serve faculty. Ask questions and listen for pain points and see what you and your data can do to help. This will help to build the kind of trust necessary to collaborate.
In our first end-of-year assessment committee meeting after switching to Anthology, we identified an institution-wide trend in our data: especially in small class sizes, even just a few students failing to submit assignments could affect our ability to meet assessment benchmarks. Because everyone had access to the relevant data, it was a trend all the stakeholders could see. Faculty have been involved in the whole process—discovery, research strategy, data collection, analysis and action plan. Together, we adjusted our assessment to more accurately capture student learning moving forward.
Our sincere thanks to Charity Schneeberger for sharing her experiences with us. If you’d like your campus to be showcased, reach out to your consultant.