GUIDING QUESTIONS
In selecting areas of student learning to be assessed, every assessment project will be limited to activities that respond to the following questions:

Content

1. What do students know?
2. When do they know it?
   
   Justification
   
3. Who needs this information for decision-making?
4. How will we use this information to enhance student learning?

1. Support of learning The purpose of Student Learning Assessment is to gather information about what students learn and when they learn it in order to assist the College in its stimulation and support of learning.
2. Utility Student Learning Assessment is part of a larger Institutional Effectiveness process of ongoing self-study with the commitment to use resulting assessment information in planning and budget decisions.
3. Parsimony No assessment information will be sought unless there is a clear necessity for it and a commitment to its constructive use. Nothing will be selected for assessment unless the relevant units are willing to acknowledge and act on the results.
4. The Knowable Core For marketing, accreditation, and articulation purposes, programs may offer broad or detailed descriptions of activities consistent with the College's mission and vision. However, for assessment purposes, goals will be limited to those that mark the essential core of each program, and related outcomes will be selected for measurability. The College acknowledges that many of the educational outcomes of which it is equally proud may not be measured in any formal assessment.
5. Long Slow Distance Although units may prepare detailed goal-oriented plans to guide routine activities, only a few goals and outcomes will be selected for assessment in any one period. After the unit incorporates the results of this limited assessment, it may select a few other goals and outcomes for the next assessment period. No unit will try to assess every goal in every assessment cycle.
6. Group Snapshots The Student Learning Assessment project is designed to take snapshots of cross-sections of students within programs, reporting on aggregates and looking for gaps and patterns that can help in improving whole programs. The CCC assessment design does not focus on the evaluation of individual students or individual courses. Teachers and departments continue those responsibilities as always.
7. Local Control The CCC assessment design responds to local needs. Some assessment data may be of use for accreditation or coordination with systemwide initiatives, and the college may gain some information about our students' standing by national norms. However, a local Assessment Oversight Committee will control the collection and promulgation of assessment-generated information, holding to the goal stated above and guided by the questions enumerated in support of the goal.

DESIGN FOR STUDENT LEARNING ASSESSMENT
at Capital Community College

(Institutionalizing Assessment through and beyond Title III)

STRUCTURE

1. Oversight Committee A Student Learning Assessment Oversight Committee will be appointed to watch over ongoing student learning assessment and to maintain an interest in the structural and political issues raised by the process. Such a perspective will enlarge the scope of vision available to assessment practitioners and management, and will be focussed on clarifying connections among assessment activities and other college activities and policies. The Oversight Committee will include faculty from several departments as well as representatives of other academic and student service units. The Oversight Committee will make recommendations about assessment policies and procedures concerning matters such as:
   • Coordination (both links with and independence from) Institutional Effectiveness efforts, program reviews, and accreditation processes
   • Coordination among departments
   • Use or publication of assessment data beyond the department level
   • Methods of evaluating assessment findings
   • Use of nationally standardized tests
   • Control of unintended consequences or perceived abuses of SLA process
   • Coordination of CCC assessment efforts with systemwide assessment plans
   • Response to problems or opportunities as they arise
2. Assessment Coordinator The Academic Dean will appoint and supervise a Student Learning Assessment Coordinator who will be an academic staff person on release from selected other assignments for at least a two-year term. The Assessment Coordinator will consult regularly with the Oversight Committee and will work closely with other relevant governance committees (CAP, PRC, etc.) and with department chairs to maintain a cooperative and participatory assessment process.
3. Assessment Liaisons At least three faculty members (preferably five, one from each department) will work with the Assessment Coordinator each year as Faculty Liaisons. They may be on release time or count their work as a major Additional Responsibility.