EDUCAUSE | Faculty and Assessment and Evaluation

Training Brick-and-Mortar Supervisors to Effectively Evaluate Online Courses and Teaching

drupal — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:13:44 -0500

The dean, division director, or department chair responsible for faculty performance evaluation may never have taught or taken an online course. Unions may stipulate that the same evaluation form be used for online and on-site evaluations. Learn how one college trained nontechnical evaluators to assess distance learning.

Assessment From the Faculty Point of View

ckeller — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:39:55 -0600

Anthropologists say professors should stop looking at measuring outcomes as an external threat and start taking ownership of the process.

Faculty Perceptions of Technology Projects

ckeller — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:54:10 -0600

A study explored cost versus impact on teaching and learning of small and large technology projects.

Using Needs Assessment as a Holistic Means for Improving Technology Infrastructure

ckeller — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 10:39:23 -0500

This paper describes a four-step needs assessment process that institutions can use to determine the gaps between current and desired states of technology infrastructure, facilitating rapid decision making. The framework described focuses on aligning learning outcomes and technology tools and can help institutions compare the current state of technology infrastructure with a desired state to best meet identified learning outcomes.

A Web-Based Activity Reporting and Evaluation System for Faculty

drupal — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:22:43 -0500

The University of Mississippi recently implemented an online faculty activity reporting system that allows users to submit details of creative, research, and service activities while automatically incorporating course, committee, and other existing information from SAP's Campus Management module. This presentation will examine the development, deployment, and benefits of this complex system.

Implementing an Electronic Annual Reporting System for Evaluating Faculty Performance

drupal — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:15:36 -0600

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech implemented a new online system that replaced printed annual reports for faculty with a Web-based system. This system automatically counts items such as unique publications and has been used to evaluate faculty for merit adjustments.

Using Rubrics to Foster Learning-Centered Practices

drupal — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 15:56:45 -0500

Through the use of an online self-assessment rubric and supporting worksheets, faculty developers can guide faculty to incrementally change their teaching in five practice areas. Participants will use these materials to assess the learning-centered status of a course. We will also consider if all courses should be learner centered. We will discuss the various ways faculty developers can use self-assessment rubrics, and problems that can arise when administrators use formative evaluations as summative measures to make high-stakes decisions.

Technology and Learning: Defining What You Want to Assess

drupal — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 12:30:44 -0500

Asking whether technology improves learning may seem straightforward, but the answer is not simple. The challenge begins with defining assessment and is compounded by the complexities of people, technology, and educational organizations. This paper clarifies technology assessment by exploring the definitions, methods, and realistic expectations it can address.

Digital Assessments

drupal — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:46:14 -0500

Blackboard, one of the leading providers of course management systems to higher education, is working on an online course assessment application for colleges and universities. Assessment is becoming increasingly important for accreditation and for accountability, and most observers see online evaluations as the best option. Online assessment currently takes a number of forms, from loosely regulated sites for students to rate faculty to more formal course-evaluation applications. Creating such systems is costly, however, and institutions that have developed them have spent considerable time and money to make them workable for administrators who need data and for faculty and students who use them. Blackboard's system is expected to focus on evaluating the course as opposed to the professor, and officials from the company said the application could eventually grow to include centralized testing, though this would not be part of the initial version.

How Do You Know What Your Students Are Learning?

drupal — Tue, 30 May 2006 12:23:11 -0500

As the demand for accountability is increasing, so is the engagement in outcomes-based assessment. How can you engage in effective, efficient, and enduring assessment? How is student learning improved as a result of such a process? This interactive session will illustrate good practice strategies for engaging in credible assessment.

7 Things You Should Know About Wikis

drupal — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 17:05:09 -0500

Update: An earlier version of this document contained an error that has been addressed. If you accessed this file prior to February 17, 2006, please download the corrected PDF.

Wikis are Web pages that can be viewed and modified by anyone with a Web browser and Internet access. Described as a composition system, a discussion medium, and a repository, wikis support asynchronous communication and group collaboration online. Their inherent simplicity gives students direct access to their content, which is crucial in group editing or other collaborative activities. Their versioning capability allows them to illustrate the evolution of thought processes as students interact with a site and its contents. Wikis are also being used as e-portfolios, highlighting their utility as a tool for collection and reflection. They may be the easiest, most effective Web-based collaboration tool in any instructional portfolio.

The "7 Things You Should Know About..." series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) provides concise information on emerging learning practices and technologies. Each brief focuses on a single practice or technology and describes what it is, how it works, where it is going, and why it matters to teaching and learning. Use ELI's "7 Things You Should Know About..." briefs to gain a no-jargon, quick overview of a topic and share them with time-pressed colleagues.

In addition to the "7 Things You Should Know About…" briefs, you may find other ELI resources useful in addressing teaching, learning, and technology issues at your institution. To learn more, please visit the ELI Resources page.

Evaluating Faculty Performance During the Information Revolution: But Is It Scholarship?

drupal — Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:28:47 -0500

Scholarship, teaching, and service form the basis for professional evaluation in the U.S. academy. The information revolution has begun to transform the possibilities within and across these three realms. We can now see the historical specificity of the "Cartesian/passive" mode of production of knowledge, with its characteristic systems for generating, evaluating, disseminating, and consuming research and scholarship. The outlines of a new mode of knowledge production help us both understand the underlying forces that strain extant systems and suggest constructive new approaches to evaluating faculty performance.

Assessing the Impact on Students of Online Materials in University Courses

drupal — Mon, 14 Feb 2000 01:00:00 -0600

Many universities currently encourage the use of online materials to enhance on-campus courses. Assessment of the impact of these technology-enhanced course initiatives is necessary if we are to gain insight into the best practices_those that faculty should be encouraged to use based on student need. Assessment studies of this type will enrich the literature of distributed learning in higher education. This paper will present and discuss 1) a process for designing assessment strategies to measure the impact of online course materials on students and 2) the results of formative and summative evaluation, including the categories of benefits reported by students. Based on a campus-wide initiative to train university faculty to use course management software, this assessment includes data collected during a pilot-term with over 1850 students enrolled in 20 courses (22 sections).