University of Nebraska Assessment
2004 Annual Assessment Report

Departmental and Program Assessment:

The primary efforts of the Faculty Senate ad hoc Assessment Committee had focused on the development of assessment plans that complied with guidelines established by the committee to meet North Central Association accreditation criteria. Their work in this regard was largely completed by the end of the 2003 calendar year. Departments and programs that had assessment plans had begun their assessment efforts. These efforts resulted in assessment reports being submitted in the fall semester of 2003. However, many departments did not turn in reports by the expected due dates. The work of collecting reports continued into 2004. Also, a few programs had not completed assessment plans and this work continued into 2004 as well.

The goal of the Director of Assessment was to have all assessment plans completed and approved by April. In this regard, the assessment for the undergraduate program in the Department of Art and Art History was completed as well as the assessment plan for the Honors Program. The only plan not completed was that for the graduate program in the Department of Art and Art History. The development of that assessment plan was postponed until the department made a decision whether to revise or eliminate the program. The department decided to revise the program. This work was undertaken during the fall semester and an assessment plan was developed at the same time. The approval process for the revised program was in progress by the end of the semester.

Fifty-four programs are expected to assess academic student outcomes. Of these, 78% had submitted reports containing student assessment data for 2002-03 by April of 2004. The departments that did not submit data-based reports had either not developed a plan, did not have students available, or had not collected data. The departmental assessment reports are to be submitted annually unless stated in their assessment plan. The due date for the reports is October 1st of the year following data collection. Thus, the reports submitted on October 1, 2004 are for the 2003-04 academic year. The return rate was 80% when counting late reports submitted through December 1st. Those not submitting reports either did not have students available for assessment (graduate), were not scheduled to assess their students, were revising their assessment plans, or experienced other difficulties. On the positive side, it should be noted that the return rate increased and the reports came in much earlier and mostly on time when compared to 2002-03. However, continued monitoring and support is needed in order to increase the return rate.

The quality of the reports is an area of focus for the Coordinator, Director, and Assessment Committee. One of the areas of concern mentioned by the accreditation exit report was the need to utilize assessment data to improve student learning and as a guide for program development decisions. An informal analysis of the reports submitted during the past two years suggests that most departments are not yet utilizing the data to enhance program development. The Coordinator and a subcommittee have begun to examine the reporting criteria to identify exemplars and recommend changes in reporting content to better focus upon student learning and program development in the annual assessment reports. This work was initiated in November of 2004 and will be completed during the spring of 2005.

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