Program Assessment Process Research Articles

Strategies to Make Program Assessment Simple in a Digital Era: A Case Study


 
 
 The assessment process of an undergraduate program is used as a case study to share some strategies to simplify the assessment process during a period where faculty members initiated the use of Tk20. Some strategies to establish an organized, and systematic academic program assessment process for the development and improvement of the academic program while implementing TK20 are identified. The strategies identified may help others to move forward in the assessment process and make it permanent and sustainable.
 
 

Quantifying the Process of Patent Right Quality Evaluation : Combined Application of AHP, Text Mining and Regression Analysis

【Technology-oriented national R&D programs produce intellectual property as their final result. Patents, as typical industrial intellectual property, are therefore considered an important factor when evaluating the outcome of R&D programs. Among the main components of patent evaluation, in particular, the patent right quality is a key component constituting patent value, together with marketability and usability. Current approaches for patent right quality evaluation rely mostly on intrinsic knowledge of patent attorneys, and the recent rapid increase of national R&D patents is making expert-based evaluation costly and time-consuming. Therefore, this study defines a hierarchy of patent right quality and then proposes how to quantify the evaluation process of patent right quality by combining text mining and regression analysis. This study will contribute to understanding of the systemic view of the patent right quality evaluation, as well as be an efficient aid for evaluating patents in R&D program assessment processes.】

A Graph-Theoretic Approach to Improved Curriculum Structure and Assessment Placement

INTRODUCTION Assurance of student learning is now required by many accrediting bodies as a key component of initial and reaccreditation requests (AACSB, 2010; SACS, 2010; MSC, 2009; HLC, 2009, Jones, 2007). The United States government has also embraced the practice as evidenced by the final version of the Spellings Report (Spellings, 2006). This report was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education as a roadmap for the future of higher education in the United States. In this report, the Commission recommended the following: To meet the challenges of the 21st century, higher education must change from a system primarily based on reputation to one based on performance. We urge the creation of a robust culture of accountability and transparency throughout higher education (Spellings 2006, p. 21). This aspiration is shared by state governments and school districts across the nation (No Child Left Behind, 2009; Jones, 2007). Clearly, the mood of the tax-paying population and the representatives they elect is one of educational accountability and outcome-based results. In an attempt to comply with this mandate, colleges and universities are rushing to incorporate direct program assessment processes into their curricula. For some institutions this is a fairly minor task because outcome-based performance measures and assessment were already a part of the academic culture. For others, the required inclusion of assessment is a massive undertaking of program redesign, process creation, data collection, and corrective analysis. In both cases, decisions must be made involving curriculum redesign and assessment structure. For example, institutions must decide what goals and objectives are appropriate for programs, what topics should be covered to achieve objectives, where the topics should be taught, where objective assessment should be performed, what is the threshold of a successful assessment, etc. These questions must be answered and the solutions implemented quickly if the institution is to gain or maintain its accreditation. Unfortunately, program redesign and haste are incompatible concepts even under ideal conditions. Given the current state-of-the-art of program redesign and the paucity of research applicable to assessment inclusion, conditions are far from ideal for most institutions. The purpose of this research is to address this problem by answering some of the key questions involved in incorporating formal assessment into an existing curriculum. Specifically, this paper will deal with the following questions. * Where in the curriculum should introductory topic coverage be placed? * Where should reinforcement of assessment topics take place? * Where should primary and secondary objective assessment be located? * Where should changes identified by assessment feedback be implemented? These are fundamental structural questions that must be answered by the faculty and administrators tasked with assessment inclusion. Currently, there are no generally agreed upon methods to deal with these structural concerns. Without a systematic, repeatable methodology to deal with these issues, the resulting assessment scheme can be arbitrary, inconsistent, and ineffective. Given the public interest in educational accountability and outcome-based learning, this is not good enough. The approach developed and described by this paper will use graph-theoretic metrics and visualization to analyze an existing curriculum structure. The graph visualizations will show the courses, pre-requisite chains, program memberships, and course types of the curriculum. From these networks, basic graph theory metrics will be calculated and used to indicate the appropriate location for assessment components and modifications within the curriculum. While the locations determined are not proven to be optimal within the curriculum, they are based on a theoretical background that is systematic, defensible, and repeatable. …

Utilizing a Global Environmental Assessment Tool to Facilitate Professional Development: The Voices of Kindergarten Teachers in Italy

This international research project examined the value of utilizing an early childhood program assessment instrument as a tool for in-service professional development and self-reflection for kindergarten teachers in Parma, Italy. Teacher educators from universities in Italy and the USA conducted the study collaboratively. Goals of the study were to engage the kindergarten teachers in testing the ACEI-GGA tool in Italy for validity and reliability; utilize the tool as a means of self-reflection and study of the classroom context; and enhance the teachers’ feelings and attitudes about the program assessment process. Data sources were the kindergarten teachers who utilized ACEI-GGA tool in their classrooms as a means of evaluating their practices and determining the clarity and ease of use of the assessment tool in Italian kindergarten classrooms. Teacher responses provided the researchers with helpful information on the clarity of the items across the five content areas or domains, especially the content area related to “serving children with special needs and their families.” Results indicate that the kindergarten teachers benefited from the use of the program assessment tool for professional development purposes. In addition, the kindergarten teachers provided helpful feedback on the clarity and usefulness of the tool.

California provider status bill heads to governor

California provider status bill heads to governor

Integration of sustainability in higher education: three case studies of curricular implementation

The integration of sustainability into higher education academic programs is occurring at an accelerated pace in response to international and national imperatives to rethink the way it serves the needs of society. Three case studies from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Northern Arizona University, and Kean University (NJ) outlines the academic structure, program, resources, the motivation and mechanisms for curricular change, key sustainability-learning outcomes and program goals, curricular changes, and assessment strategies these institutions used to integrate sustainability into their undergraduate curriculum. These three case studies exhibit several commonalities. They emphasize systems thinking and explicitly link human behavior and ecological processes by including opportunities for students to learn about behavioral sciences, life sciences, Earth and atmospheric sciences, social sciences, mathematics, physical sciences, and information sciences. Another shared attribute is that students are involved in inquiry along with the application of knowledge to real-world problems. All three programs provide opportunities for students to explore technologies, systems of economic production, cultural systems, laws and politics, and ideas and ideologies they currently employ for living with the rest of nature. Each program also provides opportunities for students to reflect and act on viable alternatives and to ask the critical questions to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and professional training to make a real difference in the world. Future program assessment processes will need to develop to address the issue of how differing levels and types of sustainability integration into undergraduate programs facilitate the achievement of sustainability-learning outcome goals.

Report of the 2011-2012 Standing Committee on Advocacy: The Relevance of Excellent Research: Strategies for Impacting Public Policy

Report of the 2011-2012 Standing Committee on Advocacy: The Relevance of Excellent Research: Strategies for Impacting Public Policy

Specialization-Specific Course Assessments Integrated for Program Assessment

The program assessment process combines assessments from individual courses to generate final program assessment to match accreditation benchmarks. In developing countries, industrial environment is not diversified to allow graduating engineers to seek jobs in all disciplines or specializations of an engineering program. Hence, it seems necessary to seek evolution of an engineering program assessment for specialized requirements of the industry. This paper describes how specialization-specific courses’ assessments are grouped per requirements and then integrated towards overall program assessment. A software program application is developed to automate this development to reduce assessment work and show equivalently as integration of specialization-specific assessments per outcome per term. The implementation also shows how outcomes are integrated per specialization-specific courses in order to judge the implementation of the program assessment. This effort is expected to help stake holders of the program to judge evolution and quality of specialization tracks vis-à-vis expectations of the local industry.

Developing Electrical Engineering Education Program Assessment Process at UAE University

SummaryAs the shape of industries within the United Arab Emirates (UAE) changes, it changes the job market and its expectations along the way. Electrical engineering education program assessment developed at the College of Engineering, at UAE University, is approaching its maturity level after a rigorous 10 years of efforts to develop an evolving program assessment process towards ABET accreditation in general, and industrial expectations in particular. This paper describes the program assessment process, along with its various component tools used to generate confidence in its effectiveness for continuous evolution of the program. It is shown how knowledge levels are measured, and skills and competencies of students are determined in order to improve the implementation of the program assessment. Finally, a software program application is developed to automate this cyclic process to reduce tiring paper work per outcome per term, and per program each year for periodic subjective assessment by program constituencies. This development has encouraged the faculty responsible for the program to focus on the program assessment process for its effective use in meeting expectations of UAE industry, in general.

Evaluation, Assessment, and Outcomes in Pharmacy Education: The 2007 AACP Institute

Evaluation, Assessment, and Outcomes in Pharmacy Education: The 2007 AACP Institute

Nutrition integrity

Nutrition integrity was defined by the American School Food Service Association (ASFSA) to focus on the importance of nutrition in child nutrition programs. Eleven core concepts exemplify how nutrition integrity can be implemented. The National Food Service Management Institute worked with the ASFSA to develop a process for achieving nutrition integrity, including the development of standards, indicators of achievement, and evidence of compliance. A program assessment process is suggested for implementing nutrition integrity at the school and district levels to improve the quality of nutrition services provided to children.

Contemporary Issues in Federal Evaluation Policy: New Linkages between Personnel and Program Assessment Processes

Contemporary Issues in Federal Evaluation Policy: New Linkages between Personnel and Program Assessment Processes