Assessment Overview
The University of West Florida assesses student learning as a good practice toward an overall goal of seeking improvement. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness collects departmental assessment reports for educational programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels to include associate, bachelor, master, specialist, and doctoral degrees as well as certificates and minors as appropriate. The Office of Institutional Effectiveness also supports the Director of General Education in collection of general education assessment reports. The annual programmatic assessment reports and accompanying documentation provided by departments demonstrate the University’s ongoing efforts to seek improvement in educational programs. Deadline for Programmatic Assessment reports for the current academic year will be June 30th. Please contact the IE office if you are needing more time.
As part of UWF's preparation for the decennial submission to SACSCOC, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness conducts workshops for chairs and faculty involved in programmatic assessment. These workshops will focus on good practices in assessment as well as how to effectively tell your assessment story to reviewers. Special attention is paid to examples of actionable use of results to improve student learning as well as closing the loop on a prior year assessment. Some of these sessions are virtual while others are in-person. Additionally, IE is also happy to meet with individual chairs and/or departments for any type of targeted assistance related to curriculum and assessment. Please contact us directly at assessment@uwf.edu if you have questions or desire more in-depth assistance with programmatic assessment practices.
Further, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness collaborates with the Director of General Education to serve as a resource for departmental faculty on good practices in assessment, advisement of effective strategies for programmatic assessment and reporting, and professional development activities related to assessment of student learning outcomes at the course-level and program-level.
In addition, the Office of Institutional Effectiveness assists the Office of the Provost in annual status reporting of Academic Learning Compacts, related assessment mechanisms, program evaluation, and continuous improvement processes (State University System of Florida Board of Governors Regulation 8.016 Student Learning Outcomes Assessment).