Outcomes
Assessment
Reports
a newsletter and Web log
by Frank Vozzo
 
Director of Student Learning Outcomes Assessment
 

 
March 6, 2006

In this report:

The Faculty Development Committee seems to be building a set of Web resources to be posted at CampusCruiser/Campus Life/Committees/TSC Faculty Staff and Administrators/Shared Files/Faculty Development Committee.  I have heard that the committee may put up its own Web site on sage.edu, modeled after what I have been doing, to reach more faculty members.  I will be happy to assist anyone who would like to learn how to do this sort of thing.  A number of us already have space reserved on the Web server (some directories are empty, however).

Here are some interesting Web assessment resources I came across via the Reinvention Center at Stony Brook University:

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has commissioned a multi-year study called the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate.  Claiming that "concerns about traditional doctoral education have been widespread and sustained for the last decade", the study aims to "enrich and invigorate" the doctorate by revealing strategies that prepare graduates to be "stewards of the disciplines".  In reading the document, you will see that the familiar strategies of outcomes assessment are all there: defining goals and objectives, choosing a sample for study, taking inventories of current practice, disseminating information on best practices, and making recommendations for reform.

The University of Washington ran a project from 2001-2003 called Re-envisioning the Ph.D.  Part of the project involved surveys of graduates, which included questions such as "what does your employing sector want in Ph.D.'s? (Skill sets, experience, qualifications)".  An example of responses from those employed in business and industry is found here.

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation posts some interesting information on the Web, including the proceedings from a 2003 workshop on assessment in doctoral education.

 

In next week's OARs: assessing the assessors.

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