New Software Aids in Assessment

The article-New Software Aids in Assessment. By: Carnevale, Dan, was highlighted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 00095982, 3/30/2007, Vol. 53, Issue 30.

Since almost everyone in our class is currently going through the accreditation process or will be soon, I thought this article was relevant at this time.

Mr. Carnevale indicated in the article how the demands for accountability for colleges is increasing, the need for technology is increasing as well. During class I heard many of my classmates talk about the tons of paperwork that is compiled when going through the accreditation process. This article mentions many computer programs that organizes and analyzes all the assessments of the students done on campus.

One such computer program called Weave which many of the faculty at the Virginia Commonwealth University used when they began gathering their information. Although faculty were reluctant to use it, it appears it was a way to solve their problem. Our class talks about getting the buy-in from their own faculty for assessment and what it entails by the mounds of paperwork required. Because the accreditation process is becoming so demanding it is better for colleges to utilize the resources that are out there to make their jobs easier.

It was interesting to read about another program and that was Blackboard. It appears that Blackboard has its own assessment software. Its focus is assessment at the classroom level and/or online collections of the students work. Since we currently use Blackboard in almost all of our classes, I thought is was important to point out that these programs mentioned as key programs for faculty to use.

The focus of assessment is towards student learning. How we improve on that all depends on the data we collect. The data collected needs to organized and accounted for. Systems mentioned earlier could be used as tools for this data collection.