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Assessment Technology >> Choose One From Column B

3/1/2007

By Matt Villano

Then they built more than 800 rubrics to measure ORU’s five student outcomes, linking the relevant criteria of each rubric to what Chalk & Wire calls a "standard." With these standards in mind, students are scored on each outcome. (They are introduced to the five outcomes from the moment they attend freshman orientation.) Wording related to the outcomes is posted on flags all over the campus, and every time students log on to the ePortfolio system, they are reminded of these outcomes. Beginning next fall, the school will include ePortfolio scores along with grade reports.

As far as ePortfolio systems go, the ORU system is typical; what makes it stand out is the school’s decision to take it university-wide and aggregate and disaggregate the data for a variety of purposes. The system was rolled out first in the School of Education in 2003, and then to the schools of nursing and engineering later that year. By 2004, the whole university had embraced the technology. Today, software for the ePortfolio system resides on a back-end server that serves the entire institution. On the front end, the interface (found here) appears in the form of a dashboard, so students can view a score for their performance on each outcome.

At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, only one program at the business school has embraced the use of ePortfolios— with a home-grown solution that Lucinda Willis, assistant professor of technology and training, has devised herself. Willis constructed the solution last fall as a way for programming and technology students to demonstrate to potential employers what they had learned at school about software and data management. (Ultimately, most of these students land technology support positions on corporate help desks.)

Is it an 'A' for Big B?

For Blackboard users: A quick update on the company’s new assessment offering.

IF IT SEEMS like content management vendor Blackboard is everywhere these days, that may be because it’s true. The latest example: the Blackboard Outcomes System, which the company unveiled in January. The system facilitates the continuous improvement of academic and administrative processes with a focus on student learning, academic programs, and co-curricular activities. To do this, the technology leverages the capabilities and user experience of the Blackboard Academic Suite to help institutions make evidence-based decisions, streamline assessment processes, and engage students in their own learning.

The platform is organized around three stages of assessment: plan, measure, and improve.Within this paradigm, the system offers specific tools on each level, to help users meet the challenges in each stage. Some of these tools enable users to build rubrics and curriculum maps, manage standards, collect and evaluate artifacts of student learning, survey student attitudes and interests, and run online course evaluations. Michael Chasen, the company’s president and CEO, says the possibilities literally are endless.



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