QTA Committee Accomplishments 2023/24

“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 monitor the core foundations assessment implementation, results, and recommendations for continuous improvement.

• Continuing the process from May 2023, the QTA co-chairs provided live collaboration training to 23 additional faculty in August 2023, 12 in December 2023, and 14 in January 2024. A collaboration training video was also created for faculty who could not attend training or wanted a refresher after training.
• QTA developed two infographics showing the college- and school-wide results of the Technological Literacy and Written Communication assessment data. The infographics are posted on the QTA portal page and included in the annual core report. The infographic was shared with deans and assistant deans for dissemination to program leaders and faculty. An announcement and core report link were posted on AdminWire for dissemination to the College community.
• ARP fully implemented the spreadsheet approach to collect collaboration data for 2023-24. Faculty feedback was overwhelmingly positive. There was an identified challenge related to file operation, so ARP made some modifications to the process, using a unique faculty link versus an individual file, piloted with faculty assigned to Summer 2024 courses. The pilot's success prompted ARP to fully implement the modified approach for the critical thinking core foundation assessment in 2024-25.
• QTA implemented a comprehensive core report structure presenting an activity summary, data results, analysis, and next steps for each core foundation and information literacy.

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

• QTA reviewed each administrative unit's annual report, providing comments and feedback.
• QTA met with each school leadership team to discuss comments/feedback provided on the 2022-23 school report and plan support sessions/resources for academic departments and programs. The same process will be used for the 2023-24 school reports under review.
• QTA and the program review committee implemented the revised template for the four program areas scheduled to complete program review during the 2023-24 academic year.
• QTA and Academic Affairs introduced a college-wide assessment day after the Spring 2024 semester. Session objectives for academic areas included completing their academic year course-level assessment reports, discussing the results and recommendations within the department/program team, and developing an assessment schedule for all courses (if not already in place).

Offer targeted assessment-related professional development for internal stakeholders.

• QTA provided three professional development sessions on the program review process during the academic year, including core, program-, and course-level assessment.
• QTA provided new faculty with professional development during the Fall 2023 semester, with a high-level introduction to program-level assessment and a focus on course-level assessment.
• QTA provided targeted course-level assessment workshop sessions to 22 unique academic program/department areas and 1 administrative area during the Spring 2024 semester.

Explore the development of program-specific quantitative thinking assessment.

• Nursing (NR) developed an assessment directly targeting the quantitative thinking skills related to the RN role.

• QTA reviewed six Strategic Initiative Fund (SIF) applications and provided recommendations to President Reed.
• QTA reviewed two Outstanding Assessment Award applications and provided recommendations to President Reed.