Empowering Instructors | Supporting Excellence
In practical terms, annual assessment serves two primary functions:
There are many frameworks for effective professional reflection, and assessment is just one of them.
At least one program learning outcome must be assessed each year such that all learning outcomes are assessed within a 3-5 year period. Once all learning outcomes are assessed, the cycle begins again.
Annual assessment report deadline and requirements: Each year, the program coordinator must submit a report detailing the assessment activities for the year, including results and identified improvements. Assessment reports are due annually by October 31.
The annual academic program assessment reporting system (AAPAR) is always open for reporting. However, we will kick off annual reporting for each academic year at the end of the spring semester.
Assessment reports are submitted directly in the annual academic program assessment reporting system (AAPAR). For the next round of reporting, you will be asked to indicate completion of your annual reporting by checking the completion box in the interface.
No. Because a course grade is likely based on content and assessments that correspond to multiple program learning outcomes, a course grade does not allow program faculty to determine levels of achievement for each of these outcomes separately. In addition, course grades may not always relate only to student achievement; often, such things as effort, attendance, class participation, and group work are incorporated into a final grade.
Undergraduate and graduate certificate programs, baccalaureate programs, and graduate and professional programs are all subject to annual assessment reporting requirements and will appear in the annual academic program assessment reporting system (AAPAR). At this time, minors and micro-credentials are not included in these requirements.
Programs subject to annual academic reporting requirements are those that result in an “award” to the student, either a certificate or a degree. Thus, undergraduate and graduate certificate programs, baccalaureate programs, and graduate and professional programs are all subject to annual assessment reporting requirements. Minors and micro-credentials are currently not subject to annual assessment reporting requirements.
Low enrollment status is reserved for programs that have experienced enrollment or retention issues resulting in enrollments of five or fewer students for the last five years. A low enrollment program: is visible in AAPAR; is not included in statistics or dashboards; and is maintained after service is archived. Programs with a low enrollment status should include program planning that addresses the low enrollment
in the past deactivating a program was an administrative process… Setting "Program Status" is now a feature of the interface and includes the following types: Initial, Active, Inactive, Low Enrollment, and Discontinued - the complete details about program status can be found here: https://programassessmentdev.webapps.buffalo.edu/help.pl#29 — open the topic "Program Status and Archiving"
The validity of every student's degree and their potential as an employee is highly influenced by the source school of the degree; if a school is not accredited, or is accredited by a questionable agency, then the value of the student's education drops precipitously. Thus, the value of the instruction drops, and with it, enrollment. In addition, attending an unaccredited program can disqualify a student from federal financial aid. Considering the number of UB students who depend on federal financial aid to attend, not maintaining our accreditation status would be a life-altering financial and professional blow to current students and significantly disincentivize new students from attending. UB is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. As an organization recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education, MSCHE has the authority to determine if the University of Buffalo and its programs are adequately meeting and maintaining the high level of standards it claims to meet. Some other programs, such as medical and law programs, are accredited by the governing board of their profession.
For a comprehensive history and explanation of standards of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, we strongly recommend visiting their website: https://www.msche.org/about-us/
For our purposes, program coordinators should bear in mind the purpose of MSCHE Accreditation for the University of Buffalo. MSCHE is an organization recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education to conduct accreditation activities for institutions of higher education in our region.
"As an institutional accreditor, MSCHE requires evaluation of all aspects of the institution holistically, including modality of instruction, and everything done in the name of the institution, including all academic programs and services, fall within their scope of accreditation. MSCHE is proud of the role it serves in verifying the quality of higher education through peer review, assessment, and evaluation. MSCHE is an active partner in quality assurance through its service as a voluntary, non-governmental, membership association for institutions of higher education throughout the United States as well as globally." -from "About Us," MSCHE.org
Essentially, MSCHE provides oversight to degree-granting institutions to ensure the institution and the programs within are indeed providing the quality education the institution is claiming to provide and provides broad standards defining "quality education." Every ten or so years, evaluators representing MSCHE visit institutions to evaluate the quality of the institution based on seven standards for accreditation and requirements for affiliation. All programs of and departments of an institution contribute to a self-study report, collecting evidence and providing narrative along with that evidence to demonstrate their compliance with the MSCHE standards.
Standard V of the MSCHE standards concerns effective educational assessment. Per the standard, "Assessment of student learning and achievement demonstrates that the institution’s students have accomplished educational goals consistent with their program of study, degree level, the institution’s mission, and appropriate expectations for institutions of higher education." Quality assessment happens continuously, not every 10 years. Thus, it is part of the mission of the Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation to ensure:
CATT and its staff provides resources, consultation, and guidance to all UB programs to ensure quality assessment occurs in order to support programmatic quality and ensure compliance with MSCHE standard V.
Yes. All academic programs that result in an “award” (either a certificate or degree) are subject to the requirements of annual assessment reporting. However, if you have completed assessment of learning outcomes for accreditation and have written up your assessment findings in an accreditation report, you can simply copy and paste information from your document into the appropriate AAPAR fields. You may also request assistance with the data entry process by emailing ubcatt@buffalo.edu.
By assessing one learning outcome each year, programs that are subject to Comprehensive Program Review will assess their entire program by the time of the next review. The holistic report for assessment of all learning outcomes will be included as an appendix in the program review self-study, and a section of the self-study will require the department to reflect on this assessment and describe strengths and areas for improvement, along with a plan for those improvements.
Since CATT must pull aggregated reports for UB as a whole, the assessment information must be entered in the discrete fields in the annual academic program assessment reporting system (AAPAR). You can simply copy and paste information from your document into the appropriate AAPAR fields. You can request assistance with this process by emailing ubcatt@buffalo.edu
Still have questions? Email us at ubcatt@buffalo.edu.