Academic Assessment Culture FAQ - Concluding Report

The identified goals of this action project have been met, including:

• Academic program review self-study guidelines have been revised to focus more on student outcomes than on inputs. University Curriculum Council (UCC) has fully implemented the revised program review self-study requirements and program review process.
   
• Academic programs are updating their learning objectives and developing new, ongoing assessment
  plans. The Assessment Clearinghouse is built and continuing to evolve with program student learning outcomes and department and program assessment plans loaded and evidence of student learning and use of student learning evidence to be included by the end of fall semester 2017.
   
• eLearning Ohio is incorporating a quality assurance process in its distance learning programs. Due to academic restructuring of all online programs to their respective on-campus colleges this goal was not continued. Online programs follow the same assessment processes that their respective on-campus programs follow.
   
• Identify and profile existing work that new faculty are bringing to the University related to Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL), academic assessment, and student success, and to identify and profile existing work that current faculty are doing related to assessment. The Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (TLA) Committee and the Office of Instructional Innovation (OII) have made significant strides in recognizing teaching excellence and learning support across Ohio University through the 2017 Spotlight on Learning Conference, and the Innovation Showcase.
   
• Provide incentives and encouragement for new and innovative efforts to improve teaching and
  learning. The objectives were to design, develop, and then publicize profiles of faculty work, and to
  redirect internal funding for proposals to encourage SOTL. The 1804 Undergraduate Fund (internal
  OU grant) advertised and granted priority consideration for the continuous improvement of student
  learning. OII also maintains an inventory of internal grants and awards that support teaching
  excellence.

Link 1: program review self-study requirements
https://www.ohio.edu/facultysenate/committees/ucc/upload/Self-Study-Requirements-Approved-2.docx 
Link 2: program review process
https://www.ohio.edu/facultysenate/ucc/upload/UCC-Program-Review-Process-Approved-2015.docx 
Link 3: 2017 Spotlight on Learning Conference
https://www.ohio.edu/instructional-innovation/ctl/events/sol-17.html 
Link 4: Innovation Showcase
https://www.ohio.edu/instructional-innovation/stories/showcase/index.html 
Link 5: inventory
https://www.ohio.edu/instructional-innovation/stories/innovation-support.html 

In addition to meeting the goals of this project, the overall success of this project was a revitalization and growth in our teaching, learning and assessment processes. The revision of the academic program review process to include a review of a program’s student learning outcomes assessment processes, the centralization of student learning outcomes assessment via the Assessment Clearinghouse and the recognization of teaching excellence and learning support across the University by the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee and the Office of Instructional Innovation contributed to the growth and revitilaztion of our teaching learning and assessment processes.

Another notable success of this project was faculty participation. The extent of faculty participation within this project was unintentionaly understated in both previous reviews of this action project. The University Curriculum Council (UCC), which led the process for revising the academic program review guidelines and process, is a standing committee of Ohio University’s Faculty Senate. Of the 52 member UCC committee, 30 are faculty. Ten of the 24 members of the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee are also faculty. Of the over 165 OHIO faculty and staff that attended the Spotlight on Learning conference 103 were faculty. Seventy percent (70%) of the presentations at the 23 breakout sessions were presented by faculty from various campuses. Despite competing interests for faculty
time, at the core of the project’s advancement of Ohio University’s teaching, learning and assessment processes was faculty involvement.

It is also worth noting that during this action project’s duration, the action project processes underwent significant and ongoing change at HLC. Likewise during this same time period, there was substantial change in organizational structure and leadership at Ohio University. Despite these obstacles the spirit of this project was maintained through these changes. While we received feedback that this project experienced scope creep, we feel that this project underwent less scope creep than recalibration to a changing standard and shifting leadership priorities. Regardless of both, the project nonetheless continued and made signigicant progress. The project’s persistence despite significant challenges is yet another success.

While the University Curriculum Council, Office of Instructional Innovation and the Teaching, Learning and Assessment Committee have antecdotal evidence that this project resulted in the growth of our teaching, learning and assessment processes, the lack of direct measures of cultural change resulted in a lack of direct evidence to support this growth. Numbers participating in the various action project activities such as Innovation Showcases, the Spotlight on Learning Event and those programs completing their Academic Program Review self-studies, can be tracked, but direct measures of cultural change was challenging to produce.