I. OBJECTIVES, OUTCOMES and ASSESSMENT A ... - pace university

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Mechanism 1: The Alumni/ae Survey Assesses Objectives 1 through 5 To the faculty, the evidence was strong that objectives two, three, and four were being satisfied. The leadership and lifelong learning parts of objective one were being satisfied as well. The chief instrument for assessing success in fulfilling the program's objectives is the Alumni/ae Survey (Attachment I-2). Its most recent administration was in Fall 2005. The current assessment schedule has it on a three year cycle for distribution to graduates three to five years out. Responsibility for its administration rests with the Seidenberg School's Assessment/Research Analyst. This mechanism measures objectives 1 through 5. Twelve computer science faculty members, on the Spring 2006 Assessment Day, studied the summarization of the completed questionnaires (Attachment I-2). The technique was to perform a content analysis of responses, looking for indications of objective realizations in the descriptions of the job responsibilities. For instance, a senior software engineer gave a job description citing "project management," "requirements gathering," and "system design." From this the faculty inferred the manifestation of leadership, collaborative skills, communication skills, an ability to apply ideas of computer science in problemsolving, and abilities integral to the design and construction of software systems. Another alumnus mentioned serving as the "interim chairman of an industry standards committee for systems management interoperability." This was clear evidence of leadership (and the correlative skills of collaboration and communication) as well as knowing when technical knowledge applies, where it applied, and how it applies. The question explicitly asking about graduate school study or industrial training to keep up with technology showed that virtually everyone was doing this. Of the alumni/ae who graduated from 1996 to 2003 who responded, 35% had completed or were in a masters degree program and 78% had completed some additional education. Only implied in the results of the survey was the disposition toward ethical conduct and a conversance with social issues (objective 5). The faculty was convinced that the limitation lay in the instrument used for the alumni/ae survey, not in the absence of these characteristics among our graduates. This is because evidence shows that the program’s learning outcome seeding these, outcome e (to acquire an understanding of professional, ethical and social responsibilities), is being met. Objective 5 is supported by the presence of the international computing honors society Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) and other honor societies present on campus including Alpha Chi, the national college honor scholarship society as well as by continuing programs for alumni/ae. The next alumni/ae survey, due in 2009, canvassing the classes of 2004 to 2006, will include an additional item asking alumni/ae to identify the two or three most 6
significant social, ethical, legal or security issues that they have encountered and about their ability to deal with them. The instrument will also include another item asking alumni/ae about the international study opportunities of which they availed themselves. Since 2004, Seidenberg faculty have offered four courses open to all Seidenberg students that have included travel to either India or to Great Britain and France. These courses would typically be electives in the general education part of the curriculum. The University has long offered a multitude of international opportunities through international field study courses and study abroad programs. These new questions addressing objective 5 will be pre-tested in Fall 2007 with a small scale alumni/ae survey. Hence, relative to the assessment of the program's educational objectives and their evaluation with this mechanism, the central improvement is a change in the primary assessment instrument. The new instrument will be available for display along with the other materials for the visiting team in the Goldstein Academic Center, room 314. Mechanism 2: Employment of New Graduates Assesses Objectives 2, 3, and 4 A successful job search following graduation is evidence of being equipped for professional participation. The employment data collected by the Cooperative Education and Career Services Department supply substantiation. For each graduating class, Cooperative Education and Career Services furnishes the Seidenberg Assessment/Research Analyst with information on the organizations, positions, and, when available, the salaries of graduates who obtained full-time jobs through their auspices (or located jobs without their assistance but were good enough to respond to an employment inquiry). With respect to the class of 2004 (data for the class of 2005 was incomplete), the highest paid graduate from the BS in CS program took a job as a programmer/analyst with the SG Constellation Financial Management Company, LLC, for $85,000. The second highest paid graduate took a job as a Web Application Developer for CIBC World Markets for $75,000. Other placements included a programmer/analyst at MBIA, a programmer/analyst at Nextel Communications, and a software developer at Epic Systems Corporation. This comes from the table in Attachment I-3. The job placements shown in Attachment I-3 go back through 2001. They substantiate that graduating students are judged by employers to have the abilities, skills, and attitudes needed to add value to their organizations in the arena of designing and building software (objective 3). Owing to the nature of software construction, this necessarily carries with it fulfillment in the areas of objectives 2 and 4. The personal intangibles that make for confidence in a candidate being interviewed are tied-up with objective 1. 7
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Page 3 and 4: B.1.A.2. Describe how your program'
Page 5: faculty members engaged with indust
Page 9 and 10: • "very good with hands-on work,
Page 11 and 12: Computer Science Program Outcomes a
Page 13 and 14: The nine mechanisms yielding inform
Page 15 and 16: Student Opinion Survey The "Student
Page 17 and 18: Summative Assessment The Summative
Page 19 and 20: averages run between 80% and 85%. S
Page 21 and 22: During the current school year, abo
Page 23 and 24: In your experience at your institut
Page 25 and 26: includes items such as Gartner Grou
Page 27 and 28: B.1.A.8. Indicate how your student
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Page 31 and 32: B.1.C.2. Attach as an appendix copi
Page 33: B.1.D. Documentation B.1.D1. Descri

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