Features of an Effective Assessment Management Platform
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What features should an effective assessment management platform have for your campus? Recently, we were asked to create a list of requirements for an effective integrated assessment management platform. This list was compiled from a large number of RFPs we received and based on collaborative conversations with a number of institutions. We hope you find it helpful!
Last Update: October 2021
1. General Features
- Hierarchical Organization including institution, campus, college/school, academic program, department and course levels
- Hierarchical Permissions matching academic organization on your campus
- Hierarchical Settings allowing central management with ability to lock down select settings top-down
- Hosted in the cloud as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
- Integration with Student Information System (SiS) for automated and continuous data imports
- Integration with Learning Management System (LMS) for complete access to curriculum mapping, syllabus, assessment and evaluation tools based on user roles at the curriculum and course levels, curricular information (outcomes)
- Integration with Single Sign-On Solution (SSO) on your campus allowing your users to access the system using their existing user accounts
- Integration Between the Tools of the Platform to make it easy to streamline operations using a single platform
2. User Friendliness and Ease of Use
- Personalized Dashboards for students, faculty and administrators
- Personalized Action Items including automated email reminders
- Modern and Friendly User Interface including responsive design for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets
- Allow Easy Access to curriculum information (outcomes), assessment tools, course evaluation tools and reports from inside the LMS as well without the LMS as direct login to the system
- ADA/VPAT/WCAG 2.1 Compliant for users requiring assistive technologies
3. Curriculum Management
- Centrally Managed Outcomes at institution, campus, college, program and course levels
- Pre-loaded accreditation standards and rubrics libraries
- Visual Curriculum Design with outcomes-to-courses mapping, developmentally appropriate alignment and performance expectations
4. Learning and Outcomes Assessment
- Consistent Assessment Data Collection with easy-to-use forms and easily accessible reports for faculty and administrators
- Automated Direct Assessment Forms Scheduling and Reminders with ability to retrieve assignments from LMS and upload assessment results directly to the LMS gradebook
- Rubric Based Grading using individual student based assessment
- Automated Closing of the Loop Forms with ability to comment on direct assessment results with ability to easily create improvement follow-up action items
- Outcomes Transcript and Competency Portfolio as evidence of student achievement with artifacts accessible to students allowing them to track progress towards achieving program/institutional learning outcomes
5. Institutional, Program and Non-Academic Unit Assessment
- Visual Workflows and Data Collection Forms that can be customized to support any type of institutional assessment process
- Strategic Planning Tools that allow both academic and non-academic units to hierarchically align, track and report their strategic plan, outcomes and goals
- Self-Study Preparation Tools to assist in completing self-study reports using preloaded, customizable templates for the professional and regional accreditation standards
- Faculty CV and Credentialing Tools that allows faculty to easily update their CVs periodically and administrators to easily manage this process and run reports
- Collection of Assessment Data for the non-academic side of the institute where it could be integrated with the academic assessment
- Strategic Planning Tools that allow both academic and non-academic units to hierarchically align, track and report their strategic plan, outcomes, and goals
6. Course Evaluations & Feedback
- Course Evaluation and Feedback Surveys that can be scheduled to run automatically based on SiS data feed every semester/term, at the beginning, middle or end-of-term, or at specified dates
- Automatic Access by Instructors and Students based on course enrollment information from the SiS
- Capability to Evaluate Multiple Instructors and/or graduate teaching assistants for a given course with or without multiple sections
- Easy Access for Instructors to track response rates real time and to access results after a designated point in time and longitudinal reporting
- Allow Instructors to Add Questions to course evaluations from inside the LMS
- Searchable Question Library with Tagging with hierarchical management of library questions
- Auto-populated Question Types based on course learning outcomes, individual faculty and program outcomes
7. Course and Syllabus Management
- Centrally Managed Course Syllabi based on hierarchical templates
- Centrally Managed Course Learning Outcomes at the course and course section levels
- Ability to Demonstrate Curricular Alignment with related program and institutional outcomes inside the syllabus
- Ability to Send the Course Syllabus to Student Information System so that students can search for syllabi
- Ability to Assign Multiple Faculty Members to one course syllabus that was created by a coordinator
- Integrate with Learning Management System to import some basic course description content
8. Reporting
- Visual Dashboards with interactive filters
- Real-Time Reports that provide longitudinal aggregate data summaries, with the capacity to disaggregate data with hierarchical permissions
- Analyze and Export Raw Data using built-in ad-hoc reporting tools and API
- Aggregate and Disaggregate assessment data at the Student, Course, Program, and Institution Level
- Graphic Customization to meet the branding standards of the institution
- Custom CV Reporting available for faculty
9. Technical Requirements
- Educause Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit (HECVAT) for security review
- IMS Global LTI Advantage Certification for industry standard advanced integration with LMS
- IMS Global Competencies and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) Certification for industry standard interoperability of structured curriculum data
- IMS Global Open Badges Certification for industry standard interoperability of digital credentials
- IMS Global CLR Certification for industry standard interoperability of digital credentials and skills-based record of achievement
- IMS Global Standards First Pledge Signatory for making open standards the first and primary choice for education technology integrations.
Features of an Effective Assessment Management Platform Discussion