This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Student Interpretation of Selected Degree Qualifications Profile Outcomes; (2) Editor's Notes: Ingenuity: A New Super Skill, a New Assessment Challenge, a New National Conversation; (3) Applying Qualitative Techniques to Assessment in Student Affairs; (4) Developing…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) A "Wisdom of Crowds" Approach to Outcomes Assessment (Gregory Burton); (2) Editor's Notes: Collective Assessment and DQP Follow-Up (Trudy W. Banta); (3) Satisfaction with Data Management Systems in Standards-Based Alignment (Brett Everhart and Jeanne M.…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Closing the Loop: How an Assessment Project Paved the Way for GE Reform (Joan Hawthorne and Anne Kelsch); (2) Value-Added? Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability in Higher Education (David C. Paris); (3) Creating a Cadre of Assessment…

Determining the success of a general education program can resemble the task of John Godfrey's six blind men in trying to acquaint themselves with an elephant. One man's approach is to feel the tusk and conclude that the elephant is a spear. Another approach leads to thinking that the broad side of the animal is a wall. The many ways of asking and…

Many people know the myth of Sisyphus, the ancient king who committed an offense against the gods and was condemned for an eternity to roll a boulder unsuccessfully to the top of a steep hill. Each time he reached the summit, the boulder, of its own weight, would roll back to the bottom, whereupon Sisyphus would have to begin laboriously rolling…

The current general education program at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, which was initiated in the mid-1990s, represents a much more prescriptive curriculum than the one prior to that time, when students were allowed to choose from a wide variety of courses. In 1999, three faculty members from the Department of Languages and Literatures…

At Oklahoma State University (OSU), faculty have defined expectations for students' learning of knowledge, skills, and attitudes about diversity, and have implemented a process to assess students' achievement of the diversity learning goal. As was done for other general education learning goals such as written communication ability and critical…

In this article, the author discusses how educators can set the context of assessment conversations by looking at "well-lighted sites" for valuable, though certainly introductory, explorations that can set the stage for the more probing and more complex assessment work to come. The author suggests that in initial assessment conversations, it may…

This article describes the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a postsecondary assessment tool designed to evaluate the "value-added" component of institutional contributions to student learning outcomes. Developed by the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), the instrument ostensibly focuses on the contributions of general education coursework…

In the current climate of emphasis on outcomes assessment, colleges and universities are working diligently to create assessment processes for student learning outcomes, competence in general education, student satisfaction with services, and electronic tracking media to document evidence of competence in graduates. Benchmarking has become a…

During the 2006 fall semester, Nashville State Technical Community College (NSCC) completed a review of its general education program, including assessment of student success. A major advantage in assessing general education is that a number of measures are available for this purpose. A major disadvantage is that these measures rarely can be tied…

The State University of New York (SUNY) assessment initiative is an ambitious project that seeks to establish a comprehensive assessment program across the largest public education system in the United States, with over 413,000 total students. This article focuses on the principles that have guided the assessment of general education across SUNY…

Monroe Community College (MCC), a two-year institution in the State University of New York (SUNY) system, attempted to launch an assessment initiative in 1990 but was only marginally successful. The effort concluded in 1991 with the development of student learning objectives for several academic programs. The early assessment organization featured…

In fall 2000, Eastern Illinois University implemented an electronic writing portfolio (EWP) to assess students' writing skills. Students who were freshmen in fall 2000 and transfer students enrolling under the fall 2000 catalogue or subsequent catalogues must submit materials to the EWP. The EWP submissions come from each academic level as…

While assessment of student learning outcomes has become standard operating procedure on virtually every campus, the driving forces for pursuing assessment remain primarily external. For that to change, campuses must evolve toward a culture of assessment based on the shared values and expectations that arise out of a community. The first step in…