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.

• Faculty teaching in Sustainability, Inclusiveness, and Navigate courses are asked to identify a single assignment from their courses that shows student learning in relation to student learning objectives of this Compass designation. Then, we ask that faculty collect all student examples submitted to them that semester and upload them to the Compass Canvas page for future assessments.

• Faculty teaching in Inclusiveness courses are currently asked to help us in distributing the Inclusiveness Learning Survey to students at the end of the course. We are currently developing additional survey instruments for other Compass designations.

• Faculty teaching in Summit courses are asked to share information with students about standardized testing in semesters when it is offered. Summit faculty are also are asked to allow raters from Compass to visit their course to observe and score student presentations in order to assess oral communication or to provide Compass with video recordings of these presentations to be scored asynchronously. Oral Communication assessment happens on a rotational basis every four to five years.

• Faculty teaching Writing Intensive courses are asked to consider the requirements for students on the UCCS Writing Portfolio when designing class assignments. Ideally, all Writing Intensive courses would require students to produce at least one piece of writing that might be suitable for submission to the writing portfolio.

In the past, faculty submitting student work have asked for a “step by step” to follow in collecting and submitting this student work, and we are happy to comply.

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.

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 this link.