CTLT and Friends

Mainly what happens in the current structure, she said, is that the compliance role is so onerous and so dominates the process that, in too many cases, colleges fail to get anything meaningful out of the improvement portion. That, she said, is why separating the two is so essential.

s initially conceptualized, the commission's revised process would have institutions build electronic portfolios made up of (1) an annual institutional data update the accreditor already uses, (2) a collection of "evidence of quality and capacity" drawn from existing sources (other accrediting reports), federal surveys and audits, and a "50-page, evidence-based report that demonstrates fulfillment of the criteria for accreditation," based largely on the information in (1) and (2), commission documents say. A panel of peer reviewers would "rigorously" review the data (without a site visit) at various intervals -- how much more frequently than the current 10-year accreditation review would probably depend on the perceived health of the college -- and make a recommendation on whether to approve the institution for re-accreditation.

"The portfolio portion really should be what's tied to continued accreditation," said one member of the audience. "As soon as you tie the pathway portion into that, you make it a very different exercise, as we're going to want to make a good case, to make ourselves look good."

“I’m a little wary.  It seems as if, in addition to the assessment feedback we are already giving to students, we might soon be asked to add a data-entry step of filling in boxes in a centralized database for all the student learning outcomes. This is worrisome to those of us already struggling under the weight of all that commenting and essay grading.”

“This is where we see many institutions struggling,” Galvin says. “Faculty simply don’t have the time for a deeper involvement in the mechanics of assessment.” Many have never seen a rubric or worked with one, “so generating accurate, objective data for analysis is a challenge.”  

I asked about faculty pushback. “Not so much,” Galvin says, “not after faculty understand that the process is not intended to evaluate their work.”

the annual reports required by this process were producing “heaps of paper” while failing to track trends and developments over time. “It’s like our departments were starting anew every year,” Chaplot says. “We wanted to find a way to house the data that gave us access to what was done in the past,” which meant moving from discrete paper reports to an electronic database.

Can eLumen represent student learning in language? No, but it can quantify the number of boxes checked against number of boxes not checked.”

developing a national repository of resources, rubrics, outcomes statements, and the like that can be reviewed and downloaded by users

“These solutions cement the idea that assessment is an administrative rather than an educational enterprise, focused largely on accountability. They increasingly remove assessment decision making from the everyday rhythm of teaching and learning and the realm of the faculty.