Archiving Assessment Documents—Some Tips and Ideas for Discussion For assessment plans or reports to be fully useful, members of the program/department need to know what information the documents contain and where they are located. So part of the whole assessment process needs to decisions about the following: •
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Which documents will be retained? In what form(s) will documents be kept? Where will documents be kept? Who will have access to the documents? How and with whom will information be shared? Which Documents Assessment plans and revisions of plans need to be kept on an ongoing basis, as do annual assessment reports. Labels for these documents should clearly indicate the year and the content of the files. Decisions will need to be made about retention of other documents and materials. Will you keep student artifacts—e.g., papers, tests, projects, videotapes of presentations—once they have been used for assessment purposes, or will you destroy or return them once data related to them have been collected and aggregated? Will you keep copies of web pages, brochures, press releases or other documents in which you report on or share assessment information? Will you keep copies of surveys used in assessment? Making these decisions can start with an inventory of what materials you have and discussion of the pros and cons of keeping them. In What Form While having a three‐ring binder or a folder in a filing cabinet can make it easy to take a quick look at an assessment, paper documents can “disappear” or lose paragraphs or more to spilled coffee or lunches. In addition, having to type again when past data and information are to be included in a current report is time‐consuming. Keeping files in electronic format can save time and add longevity to document life. If files are kept in PDF format only, it can be helpful to have Adobe Acrobat Professional software to allow cutting and pasting of information and touch‐up editing of documents. Where Documents Are Kept Although assessment documents are created by faculty members and faculty committees, completed documents should move to a central location so they can be accessed by others than the document creator(s). Since faculty and staff take vacations, go on sabbaticals, retire or leave for other institutions, keeping paper documents in a known location in the department office makes sense. Since computers get replaced and hard drives occasionally crash, electronic documents should be stored on a secure, backed‐up system and preferably on a drive that can be accessed by more than one person from his/her own computer or on a site like eLearning that can be made available to multiple users. The Office of Academic Assessment has created a template for using eLearning as a storage site for assessment documents; for more information, contact the office. To see a guide for labeling documents for plans and reports, see http://www.uni.edu/assessment/documents/namingassessmentdocuments.pdf. Who Has Access All faculty? All staff? Student employees? Graduate student assistants? Decide who has access to what documents and who can make changes to documents. Student employees who have access to assessment documents need to be informed about confidentiality expectations, particularly with respect to student records and student work. Who Receives Assessment Information Aside from being kept as program/department and college/University records, information gained from assessment activities has many potential uses. Identifying potential audiences, information and delivery methods—web pages, brochures, executive summaries, topic‐area reports, presentations to groups, e.g., can extend the usefulness of the data gained from taking a close look at student learning in the program/department. Decisions also need to be made concerning what data will be kept for program use only and what can be openly shared outside of the program area. UNI Office of Academic Assessment—July 2010