QTA Committee Accomplishments 2022/23

“The effectiveness of an institution rests upon the contribution that each of the institution’s programs and services makes toward achieving the goals of the institution as a whole.” (Middle States Commission on Higher Education)

QTA continues its contribution to that end through the following accomplishments:

Continue to pilot assessment tools designed for foundation core goals and monitor the assessment implementation, results, and recommendations for continuous improvement..

• As a continuation of the process from May 2022, the department head of communication and literature and QTA co-chairs provided written communication training to an additional 11 faculty in August 2022, 23 faculty in December 2022, and 10 faculty in January 2023. 
• A final collaboration pilot involving 13 faculty across the three schools tested the training process and rubric for campus wide assessment in 2023-24. The pilot helped define the training framework that QTA co-chairs used in May 2023 to train 57 faculty for campus-wide assessment in 2023-24.
• QTA developed an infographic showing the college- and school-wide results of the Quantitative Thinking assessment data. The infographic is posted on the QTA portal page and was shared with deans and assistant deans.
• Based on faculty feedback related to Qualtrics data entry, ARP developed faculty-specific spreadsheets to collect core foundation data. The spreadsheet was piloted with faculty assigned to Summer 2023 courses slated for written communication and technological literacy assessment. The success of the pilot prompted ARP to plan full implementation of the spreadsheet approach for core foundation assessment in 2023-24.

Advance data-driven assessment use across campus by providing clear expectations and effectively collaborating with academic schools and all administrative units.

• QTA completed revisions to the annual academic school assessment report and implemented them for the 2022-23 year. The changes were made to better differentiate between academic and administrative focus, with emphasis on streamlining the academic process. Rather than summarizing every course-level assessment within the template, only specific courses with major next-step changes and reassessments are highlighted. An overview of improvement efforts section was added to promote discussion of actions taken in response to previous data analysis to better document the “close the loop” process. 
• QTA attended selected Dean’s Council meetings to provide verbal updates on assessment initiatives and solicit support for core foundation, program, and course-level assessment.
• QTA in conjunction with the program review committee completed revisions to the Program Review template and process. As of early August 2023, the revised template is complete. Upon final review by the Program Review committee the new template and process will be implemented for programs completing review during the 2023-24 academic year. The updates include targeted prompts to aid with inclusion of critical information and brevity.

Offer assessment-related professional development for internal stakeholders.

• QTA provided professional development sessions on the program review process, including core, program-, and course-level assessment, during the Fall 2022 semester, and an Assessment Overview for Deans, Assistant Deans, and Directors in December 2022. Additionally, QTA co-chairs provided in-depth comments on course-level assessments and annual academic school reports that were shared with Deans to advance assessment work on campus. QTA co-chairs also provided feedback to non-academic units via review and comment on the administrative unit annual report.
• QTA co-chairs provided assessment sessions to new faculty and specific school divisions throughout the academic year, including program faculty at the Earth Science Center. 

• While not directly connected to a specific goal, the QTA committee was instrumental in revising the Strategic Initiative Fund (SIF) application documents and process. The application requirements were modified to achieve a stronger connection with the College’s current mission, vision, values, and strategic plan. The updated process and documents are now in use for the 2023-24 academic year.