Digitizing Annual Assessment Planning and Reporting
| Our Partner: St. Cloud State University Location: St. Cloud, MN |
Challenge
St. Cloud State University (SCSU) Annual Assessment Planning and Reporting as part of the HLC Standard Pathway Accreditation has been manual, with much of it occurring over paper and individual document files saved in drives.
Solution
SCSU is one of the largest institutions in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system and became an AEFIS Partner in August 2019. As part of their AEFIS Success Plan, SCSU sought to take their Annual Assessment Planning and Reporting process and digitize the entire process. AEFIS Data Collection Forms & Workflow solution provided the flexibility and nimbleness St. Cloud needed to build a six-stage workflow for the collection of their assessment plan and reports annually.
Impact
SCSU begins this workflow annually in AEFIS starting each October, completing the process in March. The workflow shown above ensures and automates the collection and feedback for all stakeholders including program coordinators, Office of Assessment & Accreditation, and deans for each of their eight schools/colleges.
AEFIS Annual Assessment Plan and Report form shows and hides questions based on the stage within the workflow. Multiple users can open the form and input content that applies to them, enabling easy collaboration among stakeholders.
Each program learning outcome (PLO) is displayed to the program coordinator with the ability to add new PLOs or remove PLOs as needed each year. The user completes each of the questions for the PLO that they are planning to assess for that academic year.
The Office of Assessment & Accreditation integrated rubrics within stages 2 and 5 in the workflow to assess and provide feedback to the programs annually.
Outcome
Each year this process starts in AEFIS, the program coordinators are presented with their previous content for each of the PLOs. They can then add/or remove PLOs or their assessment measures.
ROI
Digitizing this annual process has significantly reduced their overhead cost and time and allows them to focus on creating a continuous improvement plan that can be implemented in the next academic year.
