University Assessment Committee Meeting
Minutes
November 12, 2015 9:00-10:00 a.m.
Bloch Executive Hall, Room 413
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Attending – Ruth Cain, Caitlin Horsmon, Sabrina Madison-Cannon, LaVerne Berkel, Ken
Mitchell, Chris Van Ness, Jennifer Friend, Wanda Temm, Jennifer Quaintance, Maqual Graham,
Margaret Mullally-Quijas, Larry Bunce, Lynda Plamann, Peggy Ward-Smith, Jennifer Waddell,
Crystal Doss, Carol Sargent and Dan Stroud.
Not Present – Kristin Lee, Brenda Bethman, David Cornell, Rhiannon Dickerson, Da-Ming Zhu,
Greg Vonnahme, and Devon Cancilla.
1. Updates – Ruth Cain, Director of Assessment began the meeting and due to the full agenda,
quickly rolled through the updates. These included:
a. requests for articles/suggestions for Issue 4/4 of The Assessable Roo,
b. Peggy Ward-Smith’s discussion of the FaCET Spring 2016 Conference, which will feature
Jillian Kinzie, associate director of the Center for Postsecondary Research, who will foucs
on using the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to inform
practices to support student success. The FaCET Conference will be preceded on
January 11th by the UMKC Online Conference;
c. Crystal Doss’s update regarding Roowriter hold procedures that are in place; and
d. Caitlin Horsmon’s summary of her work with colleagues in her department and in other
areas to enhance assessment efforts.
2. Approval of Minutes
- The minutes from the October meeting were approved as read.
3. Election of UAC Co-Chair (Per UAC description document)
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Ruth Cain announced that there was a need to fill this position. No one immediately came
forward or officially nominated a person to fill it.
Caitlin Horsmon confirmed in the meeting that the Deans nominate all UAC members currently
on the committee.
Linda Plamann suggested that the FaCET Faculty Fellow might be a good choice to fill this
position.
Jennifer Quaintance made the suggestion that a sub-committee be created to determine the cochair’s responsibilities/job description.
Wand Temm suggested that it might be better for Ruth to write a job description that could be
brought back to the committee. From there it could be tweaked for maximum efficiency.
Peggy Ward-Smith asked if funding might be an incentive included for the person who would
take on this role. There were questions as to where this funding might come from and what the
university’s policies and practices were concerning offering additional pay to faculty for service
roles.
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Discussion was tabled to be re-discussed at the December meeting.
4. Proposed migration from Weave management system to Box system
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Ruth Cain opened discussion with mention of the frustrations that many on campus seem to
have with the Weave process. In answer to these concerns, and after deliberation with the
Deputy Provost (Cindy Pemberton), Ruth suggested a less cumbersome solution. The desire is
to have a solution for archiving assessment information that is stable, maintains a historical
record, and is (relatively) user friendly for faculty. We also need a system that is easily
accessible to external stakeholders, such as peer review team from HLC.
In moving from Weave, an annual assessment report form would be created that would
universally serve all departments, but could provide some flexibility to serve specific program
needs. It would include all of the major assessment components such as goals, outcomes,
measures, findings, and action plans, but could be developed in such a way that would make
program assessment change and reporting far less stressful and cumbersome. The form and all
evidence that the program produced would then be placed in Box at UMKC. From there, it
would be easily accessible to assessment coordinators, associate deans, deans, the university
assessment committee and any necessary external entities. It is hoped that this will be a more
straight forward and pliable approach to the assessment process. The form would be designed
by a subcommittee of UAC members. Sabrina Madison-Cannon offered that she felt there are
many functions in Weave that in fact aren’t even being utilized and perhaps never have been.
Ruth mentioned costs for Weave keep rising and in fact may double in the coming year.
Jennifer Friend spoke about how hard Weave is to navigate around from year to year.
Jennifer Waddell agreed that the system was hard to navigate and that it was difficult to
turnover responsibilities from one coordinator to the next.
Maqual Graham asked about the feasibility of using the campus Share Drive. Generally it was
pointed out that this system was not easily shared among all parties necessary for the process.
Ruth also mentioned that this decision would need to be made as soon as possible as Weave
would have to be notified within sixty days of expected termination. The university’s contract
with Weave expires in July. It is likely after having spoken to IT that much of the information
would have to be manually transferred from Weave to Box. Funds that had been budgeted for
Weave fee payment could be utilized to hire student workers to assist with transferring the
documents. Mary Lou Fritts Heinz has indicated that we would have unlimited capacity in Box.
Ruth mentioned that Task Stream and TracDat were other assessment management systems
used at other universities but that also, though configured for good purposes, were not ideal
systems as had been her experience.
LaVerne Berkel inquired as to what the next step in the process should be.
Ruth feels that Box should be suited well for the objectives that are needed in remaining
compliant with the HLC’s standards for assessment.
Jennifer Friend suggested we take a vote at the next meeting and give people both present and
some not present, time to think and talk further about this plan as a reasonable and satisfactory
solution. Jennifer also felt that managing this process internally might allow us to offer multiple
deadlines as well as multiple assessment projects as they became necessary. It was even
suggested that the university could introduce self-assessment into the process at some time
with the added flexibility this process change could provide.
5. Excellence in Assessment Designation
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Ruth Cain mentioned that this initiative has been developed to recognize institutions for good
practices on an institutional level for assessment of critical thinking and written communication.
There are two levels of designation:
1. Emerging Excellence
2. Sustained Excellence (5 years of evidence)
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The application is due April 1, 2016. It is hoped that this would be a coordinated effort that included
representatives from the University Writing and Reading Board (UWRB), the UAC, the General
Education Committee (GECC), and some external faculty and student participants. The process
would be packaged by Ruth Cain and Jennifer Waddell. Volunteers were sought for a subcommittee.
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The institutional self-studies will be evaluated according to the criteria on a rubric included in the
application packet.
6. Next Meeting: December 10, 2015. 9:00 – 10:00 AM in Bloch Executive Hall, Room 413.
Coffee will be provided.