Introduction

Welcome to the assessment website.  It is our goal to provide informative and useful information whether you are assessing your own effectiveness as a teacher, student learning outcomes, or the effectiveness of your department’s curriculum.  As you will see, there are many different ways to assess, many of which you may already use. 

As you are aware, academic program assessment has been elevated to a prominent place in our accreditation efforts.  The Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges dictates that we focus our attention on the quality and effectiveness of our programs. Although we received a commendation from the Northwest accreditation team for providing leadership in educational assessment, by posting convenient forms on the web to initiate the processes of program evaluation and outcomes assessment, (those links can be made from the assessment homepage) we have much to do. The accreditation team makes clear that our assessment efforts are uneven and that “the University has not achieved overall compliance with the ultimate goal of outcomes assessment on a broad scale.”  To ensure that we have made a concerted effort to assess our academic programs, we will be visited by Northwest in April 2005. At that time we will be required to provide assessment data, and evidence that we have used that data to enhance program delivery.

There is one important item to remember about assessment:  it is ongoing and continuous. In short, it is a very dynamic way to learn about yourself, your curriculum, and whether or not students are learning what you want them to learn.

Contained herein is information about assessment and examples of how to effectively engage in assessment.  Please feel free to comment on the information included in this site, as it is our goal to constantly upgrade and improve what we’ve provided.  Please send comments to Arlene Walker-Andrews, Associate Provost, at arlene.walker-andrews@umontana.edu.

It must also be noted that much of the information in this website is adapted from Texas A & M University (www.tamu.edu/marshome/assess/), California State University, Chico (www.csuchico.edu/community/assessment.html),  Western Carolina University (www.wcu.edu/stratplan/),  and Southeast Missouri State University (www2.semo.edu/provost/aspnhtm/busy.htm).

Office of the Provost
Vice President of
Academic Affairs

University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
(406) 243-4689
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