The college organizational structure for the administration of student learning outcomes includes two committees: the Institutional Effectiveness Work Committee and the Faculty Senate SLO Committee (herein called the "SLO Committee"). The first is a college-wide committee that deals with all levels of SLOs, from institutional to program to course. The latter deals with the details of "instructional" SLOs at the program and course levels. It was established as a separate group because (1) the largest portion of content and detail in SLOs is in instructional SLOs, and (2) instructional issues are the purview of the faculty. The results generated by the faculty committee inform the college-wide committee.
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Instructional SLOs
The work of the committees includes facilitation of the (1) identification of SLOs, (2) assessment of SLOs, and (3) application of assessment results. These are ongoing processes. SLO identification includes the writing of outcome statements by faculty, with the support of the committee. For example, a course's SLOs are written by the faculty and departments who teach the course. To assure that all courses have SLOs, outcome statements are to be included in all future new-course proposals that enter the curriculum process. Existing outcome statements are subject to review and rewrite by discipline faculty, based on (1) actual assessment results, and in the case of instructional program SLOs (2) on the extent to which course outcomes successfully map to and inform assessment of program outcomes.
Assessment of SLOs for courses is a data-gathering exercise. Some departments have developed and applied their own processes for assessment, and about 12% of courses are in assessment as of summer 2009 (Ref: bar chart). Some methods are quite labor-intensive and as such are not applied every semester. Other methods are easier to apply and have been used semester to semester. But not having college-supported assessment methods or support has left most departments with too heavy of a burden, and assessment has not been practical for all. The Instruction Office will work with the faculty committee, DVC IT, and District IT to (1) develop and offer technology-assisted assessment methods during the 09/10 school year, and (2) help departments apply these methods so that this can be in college-wide use starting in the 10/11 school year (Ref: Instructional SLO Facilitator job description).
Assessment of SLOs for instructional programs is expected to be a matter of mapping course outcomes to the program outcomes which they support. In Fall 2009, the college will (1) apply this method to a small selection of programs, and (2) study methods applied at other colleges which might lend themselves to use at DVC. Assessment plans for all instructional programs will be developed during Spring 2010, by faculty with support from the Instruction Office (Ref: Instructional SLO Facilitator job description). (Program assessment by the mapping method is therefore based on a "composite student" and not on actual graduates. This does not preclude other possible methods that do involve surveys of graduates.)
Application of assessment results for course SLOs involves a practical step and a reporting step. The practical step involves review of results at the course section level by the instructor and the department chair or designee, and resolution of any curriculum or logistical issues that may be indicated by semester-to-semester trends and/or section-to-section trends. In order to assure the best cooperation, confidentiality has to be protected in this process, so it is the responsibility of the instructor and the chair or designee to maintain any documentation associated with the process. Results at that level are not to be made public. (In some departments, the peer-review process asks faculty whether and how they have applied SLO assessment results.) Results for multi-section courses can be looked at on a more global basis to identify and address any department-wide curricular or pedagogical issues. In the reporting step, the chair or designee enters written descriptions of the assessment results and their application in the online database "eSLO" form, as evidence that the process has been applied for a course (Ref: eSLO database).
Application of assessment results for instructional programs will follow from the mapping of course outcomes to the program outcomes they support, as course-collected data is interpreted on the program level. It is expected to reveal curriculum issues and to provide a better picture of what courses we offer college-wide and how they can be used to build better degree and certificate programs.
Quality assurance for instructional SLOs is the responsibility of the faculty committee, which reviews faculty-generated outcome statements and provides advice and aid. (Ref: faculty committee bylaws).
