4. The institution identifies expected outcomes, assesses the extent ...

SACS/COC Fifth-Year Interim Report, Part III.
faculty member in the VCU Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory since 2001, Ms. Birtley brought
expertise in research methods, program evaluation, and systems. Most recently, she was the VCU
Principal Investigator for the Supreme Court of Virginia’s statewide judicial performance evaluation
program. Gaurav Gupta, M.B.B.S., a web services specialist at the VCU Center for Teaching Excellence,
has served as the assessment team’s Information Technology Analyst since November 2007. Mr. Gupta
is one of the VCU administrators for WEAVEonline and serves as the contact person for Centrieva's
WEAVEonline software developer. Mr. Gupta has expertise in web development, management of web
applications, data management and processing, basic statistics, and documentation and training.
In Fall 2009, the assessment team took several steps to maintain continuity in and strengthen the
assessment process at VCU. Key examples of the assessment team’s efforts in Fall 2009 include:
Requiring assessment plans for all degree-granting certificate programs;
Auditing the program listing in WEAVEonline to ensure that all degree-granting programs were
listed and had assessment plans, and ensuring that the listing was user-oriented;
Enhancing the analysis section of the assessment plans by adding three questions focused on
continuous improvement:
1. How were the assessment results communicated to your faculty
2. How did the faculty review the results for the purpose of improving student learning
outcomes
3. What changes, if any, were made to improve student learning outcomes
Creating a related accreditation standards cross-walk to capture standards set by external
accrediting bodies;
Updating VCU’s WEAVEonline Quick Start Guide;
Creating a worksheet for preparing an assessment plan in a Word file, from which information
can be copied and pasted into WEAVEonline;
Posting additional resources on the Office of Assessment website, including examples of scoring
rubrics;
Conducting detailed reviews of assessment plans and holding face-to-face meetings with
representatives from more than 50 academic programs on the Monroe Park and MCV
campuses; these meetings ranged from individual consultations to a session with all department
chairs and associate deans from one of the university’s schools;
Working directly with representatives from nine programs newly approved by SCHEV, to
educate them about assessment and to help them develop assessment plans;
Chairing two Assessment Council meetings and communicating regularly about the status of
assessment plans;
Conducting five one-hour WEAVEonline workshops for faculty, administrators, and staff on five
different dates, which included a review of assessment of student learning;
Representing the Office of Assessment on the University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
and reviewing proposals for undergraduate curriculum revisions;
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