Assessment

Currently, we assess student learning in relation to Compass Outcomes using three primary methods

1. Direct assessment of student work.

• For writing proficiency, UCCS students must submit and pass a writing portfolio (PORT 3000) before graduation. The portfolios are scored by faculty raters.
• For oral communication, we observe and score student presentations in Summit courses on a rotation (once every four to five years)
• In Inclusiveness, Sustainability, and Navigate courses, we ask faculty to submit work from their students which is scored by teams of faculty raters on a rotational basis.

2. Indirect assessment through student survey responses.

• Currently, we distribute surveys in Compass Inclusiveness courses and are developing and piloting surveys for other courses.
• Beginning in Spring 2023, we will survey students about their experiences and learning relevant to Compass General Education outcomes as part of the standardized tests described below.

 3. Standardized testing of Freshmen and Senior students offered through the UCCS Assessment Office.

• We score freshmen and senior students on the ETS Proficiency Profile
• We score senior students using the Territorium HEIghten Exams on a rotational basis

We ask faculty to participate in assessment by helping us collect student work and by assisting with distribution of surveys.

At the beginning of each term, we notify faculty by email if they are teaching a course that is expected to participate in assessment. You can also check which courses are flagged for each requirement on our Curriculum webpage or by requesting by email (compass@uccs.edu).

Explore Courses

• No Assessment Requirements

Writing Intensive Courses

• We request that all Writing Intensive courses require students to produce at least one piece of writing that meets the requirements for submission to the UCCS Writing Portfolio.

Inclusiveness Courses

• Direct Assessment of Student Work
  • Submit one course assignment (examples from all students) to Compass through the Compass Faculty Hub in Canvas. Select an assignment that demonstrates student learning. Collect all examples from your students that semester. Upload as a .zip file to Canvas
• Distribute Inclusiveness Survey to Students
  • See our website for sample language you can share with students

Sustainability Courses

• Direct Assessment of Student Work
  • Submit one course assignment (examples from all students) to Compass through the Compass Faculty Hub in Canvas. Select an assignment that demonstrates student learning. Collect all examples from your students that semester. Upload as a .zip file to Canvas

Navigate Courses

• Direct Assessment of Student Work
  • Submit one course assignment (examples from all students) to Compass through the Compass Faculty Hub in Canvas. Select an assignment that demonstrates student learning. Collect all examples from your students that semester. Upload as a .zip file to Canvas

Summit Courses

• Help us to recruit upper classmen students for standardized testing.
• Once every 3-5 years, participate in assessment of oral communication by allowing Compass raters to visit your class for student presentations or sharing the presentations with us digitally. We will email you a semester in advance of this taking place.

Direct Assessment of Student Work

In the past, faculty participating in Direct Assessment of Student Work for a “step by step” to follow in collecting and submitting this student work.

1. Review the learning objectives and assessment rubrics for courses in your Compass area on our website
2. Identify one assignment from your course where students show evidence of learning relevant to these objectives.
3. Collect all examples of that one assignment from all students this semester (presumably through Canvas)
4. Submit that student work as a zip file to the “assignment” in the Compass Assessment page in Canvas
5. Compass leadership will save up the work submitted and then pull a random sample from it the next time this area is up for assessment. We will share that random sample with a team of faculty raters to be scored. We will report the scores out averaged to the college level. No specific courses, faculty, or students are identified in the final report.

Student-Facing Survey Language

When faculty distribute the course surveys, you may choose to distribute through email or Canvas. If you like, you can share or edit the sample statement to students found below.

Dear students,

UCCS kindly asks for your assistance in assessing the quality of student learning in our Compass General Education courses. This semester, you are enrolled in a course that meets the “SAMPLE” requirement for the Compass General Education. We ask that you complete this brief survey about the course and your experiences.

Our goal in the survey is to gauge the overall level of learning that takes place at UCCS. This is not an assessment of specific faculty or their courses, nor is it an assessment of you specifically. Rather, it is an assessment of student learning across campus. Your name is not recorded, and neither the faculty teaching your course nor the course name/number will be identified in the final report.

Compass takes seriously our obligation to protect faculty and student privacy.

When using student work collected from faculty or survey data from students, all final reports present data averaged to the level of UCCS Colleges. This serves to protect the privacy of the students submitting and of the faculty assisting us with collection. Our small teams of faculty raters scoring student work do see the names of students and faculty when conducting the assessment. However, these raters are given training and instructions on how to work with sensitive data. If a faculty member has concerns about the team of raters seeing the names of students or faculty, they can anonymize the data before submitting or ask the Compass Assessment Coordinator to anonymize the student work for them.

In the case of the Standardized Testing, Oral Communication and Writing Proficiency assessments, the student proficiency is not tied to particular courses and the sample sizes collected are large enough to protect the anonymity of individual students. Therefore, data is often averaged to the level of individual departments or degree plans in order to provide campus decision makers with more information. If the sample sizes are small enough that individual students could be identified, this data is omitted from reports. The campus Assessment Director, Compass Assessment Coordinator, and teams of faculty raters see written work, test scores, and presentations tied to individual students, but they are given training and instructions on how to work with sensitive data.

The rubrics and survey instruments we use to assess students are available on our website at Compass Rubrics and Outcomes.

Past assessment reports are stored on the Compass Faculty Hub in Canvas. Most faculty teaching Compass courses are automatically added to the page. Other UCCS faculty may join the page manually using Canvas.