NMU AoL Background - Institutional Effectiveness

Responsibilities:

Each liaison completes the NMU Assessment Academy Training. In order for assessment of learning work on campus to be effective, faculty-led peer support with shared understanding of flexible use of the basic assessment foundations is essential. The Academy prepares faculty to engage with peers constructively, both in being the assessment resource in their department and in reviewing cross-campus assessment reports.

The AoL Faculty Committee Chair and the Director of Assessment will meet with new liaisons in a small group each new academic year or individually.

Dates:

AoL Committee Work

One major responsibility as a liaison is to, as a triad member, review programs’ reports to see if they have clearly identified, communicated program learning outcomes (PLOs). AoL Committee will do this for all programs and degree types within every major; each triad will be assigned one or two programs to review each year.

The AoL Committee will meet and review the reporting schedule for programs. Roughly one-third of the programs will do a full, comprehensive report each year submitted for triad discussion, while the remainder will submit to Academic Affairs updates on a yearly rotation. Liaisons, AoL Committee members, will each read one or two long reports and then meet with the departments to facilitate a reflective discussion of the work.

Lastly, once reports are being processed and submitted, if asked, we will coach programs to help them achieve their programmatic assessment goals.

Departmental Resource

The other major responsibility as liaison is to be a resource for your department. Through the Academy and through work on the AoL Committee learning how other units are approaching assessment of student learning, you will gain more experience with assessment than others and can be a point of information and advice for assessment work. Support is available to you in this work; you are not expected to be an expert, but rather someone with more experience than others.

You will be the leader pulling together assessment efforts as faculty collaborate in understanding student learning and developing interventions to improve your students’ experience. You will have relative expertise as the person in your department working most closely with assessment – that doesn’t mean you have to feel like you know everything. The AoL Committee, the NMU Director of Institutional Accreditation and Assessment, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and other resources are at your disposal. 

In order for assessment to be effective, it can’t be something one person does in isolation. Your responsibilities within your department are to know the procedures and expectations or the Committee and communicate them to your department. You are not the person responsible for creating your department’s report(s), rather, you serve as a connection between your department and the AoL Committee. It is up to your department to determine how the report is constructed and by whom.

Expectations:

Each Liaison is expected to:

1. Complete the Assessment Academy Training
2. Attend required meetings

General Annual Reporting Timeline:

• Fall semester new Committee members meet for training and expectations setting
• Fall semester AoL Committee members available to coach; triad check-ins with departments
• Departments work on reports late fall or over break
• Reports due first week of Winter term – departments submit reports to AoL Committee
• One planned AoL Committee meeting early winter semester
• Each triad receives and reviews one or two reports early Winter term
• Triads meet with submitting departments and lead reflective discussion

Training:

For help sorting out the work, review the presentation here (clicking this link will open a pdf file, which is downloadable, in a new tab). Note that some slides have notations that provide additional explanation which might be useful. To see them, toggle comments on by clicking the dialog icon in the pdf upper right corner.

Executive Summary of Findings and Recommendations Made to the Provost 
June 2021

During academic year 2020-21, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, regular programmatic assessment review was largely temporarily suspended by giving departments the option of not reporting, while the Assessment of Learning (AoL) Committee took time to review NMU’s AoL processes.  A steering group was formed including the AoL Faculty Chair (then Shaun Thunell) and IRPA (now Institutional Effectiveness) staff.  The steering group established three workgroups with AoL Committee members and other campus faculty, staff, and administrators who focused on key areas for review. Workgroups and members are listed below.

Workgroups developed recommendations around key facets of the AoL process and quality with the overarching focus being on ways to increase value and return on investment. Throughout discussions with academic departments, a common focus emerged where AoL had been primarily thought of as “report submissions.”  In order to create value and positively improve the culture, a shift needs to occur focusing on continuous improvement work, which then leads to a submission to the Committee who then provide useful cross-campus peer feedback.

Value

• Focus on departmental continuous improvement efforts rather than reporting 
• Create a database with information about department reports and the outcomes of the review process (e.g., the committee recommended X, the department implemented a change based on X, the program improved by X); utilize results in annual campus-level reporting and to identify in-service training and/or professional development opportunities 

Reduce burden for academic departments

• When possible, align with specialized accreditation expectations and timeline
• Offer flexible submission process
• Departments submit detailed reports every three years, with only simple affirmations that progress is being made due on non-reporting years

Increased process efficiency

• Emphasize faculty work already being done
• Reduce submissions to a rotating three-year cycle to allow departments time to collect evidence of student learning, reflect, and update programs  
• Streamline submission process 

Improved quality in submissions and feedback

• Create consistency and stability in the process
• Build relationships 
• Restore value and confidence for Academic Affairs to increase advocacy and accountability

AoL Workgroups Member List, Academic Year 2020-2021

AoL Faculty Chair

Shaun Thunell

Steering Group

Shaun Thunell

Dan Cullen

Jason Nicholas

Joanne Sved

Triad Review

Matt Jennings

Sarah Jones

Lex van Blommestein

Communication Workgroup

Mitchell Klett

Derek Marr

Judy Puncochar

Process Workgroup

John Centko

Dan Cullen

Ahmed Elnoshokaty

Brad Hamel

Randy Klitzke

Stephan Larson

Michael Letts

Joseph Lubig

Kathryn Newton

Jason Nicholas

Matt Smock

Shaun Thunell

Philip Yangyuoru

Professional Development Workgroup

Stacy Boyer-Davis

Dan Cullen

Jason Nicholas

Alex Stoner

Shaun Thunell

Kristen White

Liz Wuorinen

Policy regarding NMU Assessment of Learning expectations and program accreditation:

The following pertains to programs that are fully accredited by an appropriate professional organization recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. If a program has accreditation that requires assessment of student learning, the department may opt to submit to the AoL Committee accreditation documentation along with a road map to let the Committee identify the elements NMU expects. 

Alternatively, the department may submit a brief attestation that student learning is assessed and documented as part of the programmatic/specialized assessment process. In such cases, departments should be aware that:

• Support from the AoL Committee, assessment liaisons, and/or Institutional Effectiveness remains available.
• Full review by the AoL Committee remains an option. It may be that the department values input from NMU colleagues and/or it may be valued in the programmatic/specialized accreditation process. Departments that wish to use the AoL Committee feedback process to aid their program accreditation process are allowed to and encouraged to do so.
• Academic Program Review requirements should be considered carefully.

If a program is seeking accreditation, the department continues to participate in standard NMU AoL reporting until it can document external review of learning outcomes assessment.

Assessment of Learning Committee Faculty Chair: Lex van Blommestein, Theatre & Dance