The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Curriculum Alignment Tool (CAT) User Guide
The open source Curriculum Alignment Tool (CAT) was developed by the curriculum
innovation team at The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE) at the
University of Saskatchewan.
To be used as part of a larger curriculum inventory strategy, CAT is one approach for
collecting instructor’s perceptions of their courses’ instructional methods, assessments,
course learning outcomes and program’s outcomes in relation to their course.
Visit www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat for introductory videos and other resources.
Login at ulc.usask.ca/cat
CAT is available for use by UofS programs. Support from the GMCTE is also available,
including curriculum development support (process coaching, resource support and
facilitation), curriculum renewal and innovation cycle resources, and instructional
development resources (learning outcomes, assessment). Contact cat_gmcte@usask.ca to
arrange for an introduction to CAT, program-level access or arranging data entry sessions.
Visit www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat for introductory videos and other resources. Visit
www.usask.ca/gmcte to learn more about these supports.
Programs at other institutions, contact cat_gmcte@usask.ca to learn more CAT, or visit
www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat for introductory videos, information about CAT’s open source
licence, and other resources. To try CAT from an instructor’s perspective login to
ulc.usask.ca/cat with Username: catvisitor Password: just4trial
Contents
Data Access, Use and Storage
Use of Your Information
PAWS Importing & Data Backup
Newer Tablets May Be Used
Data Export
Open source Licence and Disclaimer
PROGRAM ADMIN - SET UP YOUR PROGRAM IN CAT
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
1. Create your program
5
2. Manage Some Final Questions
6
3. Add Courses to your Program
Add Existing Course to Program (already in CAT)
Add a Offering of a Course (e.g., course section)
Adding an Instructor to New or Existing Course
7
7
7
8
1
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Steps to Adding a New Course (not listed in CAT)
Multiple Offerings of the Same Course
9
11
4. Specifying Program Outcomes
Add a previously created program outcome
Create a Program Outcome Category
Copying from Word
Create a Program Outcome within a Group (within a bolded category)
Multi-Level Program Learning Outcomes
Deleting a Program Outcome in Managing Window
Specify course & program outcome characteristics (default is Knowledge, Skills and
Values)
11
12
12
13
14
15
15
5. Map to Organization Outcomes (optional)
Adding and Managing Organization Outcomes
Map using the Program Admin Tab:
17
17
18
6. Adjust Instructor and Course Attributes (optional)
19
7. Reviewing and Summarizing Courses
a) Data Completion Table – Check which Courses have Information Entered
b) Program summary table and bar charts.
c) Display or print off the summary pages of each course offering.
d) Exporting Data for Records or Customized Analysis in Excel
20
20
21
22
22
INSTRUCTORS
16
23
1. My Courses Homepage
When Instructors Teach Multiple Offerings of the Same Course
23
23
1. My Instructional Methods
25
2. My Assessment Methods
What if the final exam contains both closed-questions and open-ended questions?
There is an error when I try deleting an assessment, what can I do?
26
26
27
3. My Course Learning Outcomes
27
4. How I assess for My Course Learning Outcomes
27
5. My Course Within this Program
28
6. My Course Outcomes in Relation to Program Outcomes
30
7. Some Final Questions
31
8. Summary Page
Reviewing and Tracking Changes in My Courses
31
31
SYSTEM ADMIN
1. Adding of a Home Department to a New or Outside-Department Course
32
32
2
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
2. Create Organization
33
3. Manage Organizational Permissions
33
4. Manage System Permissions
34
5. Importing Courses into CAT
35
6. Manage Characteristics (e.g., K, S, V)
35
7. Manage Assessment Methods (e.g., final exam)
36
8. Organizational Outcomes
37
Common Buttons
37
3
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Data Access, Use and Storage
Use of Your Information
We at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness respect the confidentiality of our
partners and will not release details of academic programs, teaching or assessment methods,
or faculty / student comments without prior permission of the academic unit.
Information entered into the Curriculum Alignment Tool (CAT) is primarily for the use of your
academic department or college to assist you in inventorying and analysing your curriculum
as well as aligning your courses and assessments with your program goals and student
learning outcomes. Data gathered within CAT may be used by the GMCTE and its staff in the
following additional ways:
1) To discuss details of programs with members of your academic unit (instructors or
program coordinators, program curriculum committees).
2) To assist in training instructors and program coordinators / Curriculum Chairs
with entry and reporting functions of the tool
3) To improve the tool itself and to confirm proper functioning (e.g., testing
reporting functions, examining how CAT links courses to multiple programs).
4) For reporting aggregated data to inform program curriculum review processes (e.g.,
average number of learning outcomes per program), and for identifying trends across
campus (e.g., increasing percentage of courses reporting experiential learning over
time). No individual program or courses would be identified in such reports.
Any information requests about specific programs, courses, or instructors will be referred
to the appropriate person or committee within your academic unit.
PAWS Importing & Data Backup
When PAWS imports data into the tool it will only add data and will ignore existing data.
The Curriculum Alignment Tool’s database is backed up to a different server every night.
Newer Tablets May Be Used
CAT functions on newer tablets (e.g., iPad2); older tablets are not recommended.
Data Export
In addition to the course and
program summaries, CAT can
export all data as an excel file in
the program admin tab.
Open source Licence and Disclaimer
For other institutions interested in using CAT, or any program interested in customizing CAT,
the open-source licence and disclaimer is available at: www.usask.ca/gmcte/CAT
4
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
PROGRAM ADMIN - SET UP YOUR PROGRAM IN CAT
www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat has a How to Use Cat: For Program Administrators video.
Prior to instructors entering data:
1. Create your program
2. Specify program-specific final questions
3. Add Courses
4. Specify Program Outcomes and outcome characteristics
5. Map to organizational outcomes (optional)
6. Adjust instructor or course attributes (optional)
Then after data entered:
7. Review and summarize courses
1. Create your program
In the program admin tab, select your department and program. If your program does not
exist, “click add program”
Type the program name and click “save”.
Click on the newly created program to complete the remaining set up steps.
5
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
2. Manage Some Final Questions
In the selected program, click the “Manage Final Questions” link at the top of the page right
under the program title.
Click “Add/create/edit a question”
You can select from a previously created question, but if it is in use by another program in
CAT it cannot be modified or deleted (as noted in the bright red font).
To create a new question, scroll to the bottom of the list then:
a) Type (or copy and paste) in the question. If copying and pasting see note below about
**Copying from Word (p. 14).
b) Select the question type
c) Select an answer set or create on (see link at bottom
)
d) Click the “Save” button at the bottom
e) Select new question from the list and “add this question”
6
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
3. Add Courses to your Program
Add Existing Course to Program (already in CAT)
• In the selected program, under the “Courses” header, select “add a course”
•
•
In the pop-up window, select the course you want to add using the drop down menus.
Click “Add this course”
•
If the course is not listed, then you will need to add a new course.
Add a Offering of a Course (e.g., course section)
Once a course has been added, select the course you want to add a course offering for. If
the course does not appear in the list, then your department does not have home
department access to the course. Contact system admin (e.g., cat_gmcte@usask.ca) and
request that access to the course be given to the department as it is a newly create course,
or other department has given permission.
7
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
In the course characteristics page that appears, select “Add a course offering.”
Enter in details in the pop-up window, save, then close
Adding an Instructor to New or Existing Course
Edit Course offering by clicking on paper/pencil edit icon. If a list of course offerings does not
appear, then your department does not have home department access to the course. Contact
system admin (e.g., cat_gmcte@usask.ca) and request that access to the course be given to
the department as it is a newly create course, or other department has given permission.
8
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
•
•
•
Enter in course instructor information
Save
Close
Steps to Adding a New Course (not listed in CAT)
• Within the Program Admin Tab, click “Add a course”
Select “Add a course (the one I am looking for isn’t in the system yet)”
9
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
•
Enter in the information about the new course:
•
Check the courses list for the program. The new course should be listed.
•
When you edit the course, you have the option of either specifying program outcome
ratings for the course yourself or adding course offerings (using the edit icon )
10
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
If the add course offering option does not appear, your department does not have home
department access to the course. Contact system admin (e.g., cat_gmcte@usask.ca) and
request that access to the course be given to the department as it is a newly create course, or
other department has given permission.
Ask one of the Gwenna Moss Centre personnel with system admin privileges to add your
department as a home department.
Then, complete the add a course offering and add an instructor steps.
Multiple Offerings of the Same Course
If the same instructor teaches multiple identical sections of the same course within or across
years, the instructor (or program admin) can copy the data from a completed course section
to the empty other section(s). See instructor section for How.
4. Specifying Program Outcomes
In the program information page that summarizes the courses and other information entered
by instructors, see the “Manage Program outcome:” section located below the list of course
on this same Program information page.
11
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
•
Select “Add an outcome”
Add a previously created program outcome
Select relevant outcomes from list or create one by clicking “Add a Program Outcome”
Create a Program Outcome Category
To create a Program Outcome Category in CAT, Click “Edit outcomes”
12
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
In the pop-up window that appears, scroll to the bottom to create a new program outcome
group (bolded titles designating categories of program outcomes),
Click “Create new Program Outcome group for … [your program]”
Type in the Program Outcome Category name, click Save, then click Close. If copying and
pasting see note below about **Copying from Word.
Copying from Word
**When copying from Word or other "rich text" documents, any quotation mark (e.g., " ) will
need to be deleted then retyped. Other special characters such as apostrophes should work.
The reason is that Word documents use a different code for quotation marks than most
Internet programming code uses and thus do not transfer smoothly.
Steps for copying from word to Program outcome group or outcome entry window:
• copy text from word document
• paste in textbox
• delete and retype any or quotation mark
• click save
• click close
13
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Create a Program Outcome within a Group (within a bolded category)
To create a Program Outcome in CAT, Click “Edit outcomes”
In the pop-up window that appears, look for the relevant program outcome group (bolded
titles designating categories of program outcomes), then click “Add Outcome to Group”
Type in the Program Outcome Category name, click Save, then click Close. If copying and
pasting see note above about **Copying from Word (p. 14).
14
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Multi-Level Program Learning Outcomes
Some accreditation standards and program outcome documents contain categories, subcategories and even sub-sub-categories of program outcomes. CAT allows for two
hierarchical levels for program outcomes entitled: 1) Category and 2) Program Outcomes.
Decide what is the most meaningful two levels in your program outcomes
1) Category – the most meaningful way to group program outcomes/goals
2) Program outcomes – the most meaningful level for instructors to rate how much
depth and emphasis is placed and which course learning outcomes are related.
The category level may represent a single level of program outcomes, or represent a more
detailed version of one level (e.g., 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2, 3, 4…). The program outcomes level may
also refer to more specific indicators (e.g., refer to 1.1.1). This following is used with
permission from the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada):
1. Care Provider - A. Assess Patients: As Care Providers pharmacy graduates use their knowledge, skills and professional
judgment to provide pharmaceutical care and to facilitate management of patient's medication and overall health needs. :
1.1 Develop and maintain professional, collaborative relationships required for patient care. (refer to 1.1.1 to 1.1.4)
1.2 Elicit and complete an assessment of required information to determine the patient's medication-related and other
relevant health needs. (refer to 1.2.1 to 1.2.5)
1.3 Assess if a patient's medication-related needs are being met. (refer to 1.3.1 to 1.3.6)
1.4 Determine if a patient has relevant, priority health and wellness needs. (refer to 1.4.1 to 1.4.4)
1. Care Provider - B. Plan Care :
1.5 Refer patients for management of priority health and wellness needs that fall beyond the scope of practice of
pharmacists
1.6 Develop a care plan that addresses a patient's medication-therapy problems and priority health and wellness needs.
(refer to 1.6.1 to 1.6.8)
1.7 Implement the care plan. (refer to 1.7.1 to 1.7.6)
1.Care Provider - C. Follow-up and Evaluate :
1.8 Elicit clinical and / or lab evidence of patient outcomes. (refer to 1.8.1 to 1.8.5)
1.9 Assess and manage patients' new medication-related needs. (Footnote: Go back to assessing patients section)
1.Care Provider - D. Document :
1.10 Support the continuity of patient care by documenting their patient care activities. (refer to 1.10.1 to 1.10.3)
2. Communicator: As Communicators pharmacy graduates communicate with diverse audiences, using a variety of strategies
that take into account the situation, intended outcomes of the communication and the target audience. :
2.1. Communicate non-verbally and verbally with others. (refer to 2.1.1 to 2.1.6)
2.2. Communicate in writing. (refer to 2.2.1 to 2.2.3)
2.3. Present information. (refer to 2.3.1 to 2.3.3)
2.4. Use communication technology. (refer to 2.4.1 and 2.4.2)
...
Deleting a Program Outcome in Managing Window
To delete a program outcome group, click the trashcan
beside the program outcome. If
deleting does not work, you likely need to first delete its program outcomes.
To delete a program outcome, click the trashcan
. If deleting does not work, check if the
program outcome has been added to your program as program outcome cannot be added as
a program’s program outcome in the list that appears on the program’s summary page.
15
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Specify course & program outcome characteristics (default is Knowledge, Skills and Values)
In the Characteristics Admin tab (left of the program admin tab) select your program and then
“add a Characteristic” and delete one (X). You can select your preferred question-option set
for characterizing your program outcomes and course outcomes “Add to organization”.
Both program and course outcomes will use the same question-options sets selected. If you
want a new set created, contact a system admin (e.g., cat_gmcte@usask.ca) who can enter the
question –options set into CAT.
16
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
5. Map to Organization Outcomes (optional)
Individuals with program admin access can see existing organization outcomes, including the
U of S Learning Charter. Additional university- or college-wide outcomes can be added.
Adding and Managing Organization Outcomes
In the program admin tab, click on your department and click the “settings” link.
Open the “settings” listing and under “Organization Outcomes” press “Add an outcome.”
Select the appropriate outcomes. To select multiple outcomes hold the “shift” key and click
the relevant outcomes. They will then appear on the Organizations and programs page.
System admin can edit the listed organization outcomes.
17
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
Map using the Program Admin Tab:
In the Program Admin Tab, select the program. On the program description page that
appears, see the “Mapping of Program Outcomes to Organization Outcomes” section
below the table and before the bar charts. Click “Edit” to see the pop-up window
If Organization Outcomes are not listed add Organization Outcomes on the previous page.
If program outcomes are not listed, then manage program outcomes on the same page.
In this popup window, select the relevant program outcome for that organization outcome
and press the "Add Program Outcome link to Organization Outcome" button. Repeat
selecting and adding program outcomes until all relevant ones have been selected and
appear above the box with possibilities. Then click “Close.”
Selections will appear on the table on the summary page.
18
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
6. Adjust Instructor and Course Attributes (optional)
•
An Instructor Attribute refers to characteristics of an instructor such as degrees (e.g.,
P.Eng., Ph.D.)
• A Course Attribute refers to characteristics of the course such as area of focus (e.g.,
Literary, Mathematics).
Instructor and course attributes can both be adjusted in the program admin tab. Select your
department, and then click “settings”
Under settings select instructor attribute or course attribute, and then add the new
characteristic you would like to capture data about.
19
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
7. Reviewing and Summarizing Courses
First check if you have data from all of the courses you intend to review. Next, CAT provides 3
options for reviewing entered data.
a) Data Completion Table – Check which Courses have Information Entered
The data completion table shows which course offerings in your program have already had
information entered into the 6 data collection pages. The link to your departments/program’s
data collection table is available on the Organization and Programs page.
When the “Data Completion table” link is clicked then a new webpage will open listing all
courses and showing based on colours (or shades if printing in black and white) which course
offerings have had entered data and which remain. If bars do not appear when printing, make
sure “print background” is selected in browser section of printer options.
20
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
b) Program summary table and bar charts.
In the program admin tab, select your department and program. The lower half of that
program page will shows a summary of the data. Select the appropriate term (e.g., Fall
2011 labeled 200109) and courses. Note a course’s value is the average of all its offerings
across the selected terms and completed course sections.
21
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
c) Display or print off the summary pages of each course offering.
Course data can be access by the instructor by selecting a course offering in the “My Courses”
tab, or by a program admin clicking on a course offering of a course that has been added to
the program (see earlier section on course offerings in Program Admin Step 3).
Once inside a course, proceed to the end or select the “Summary” link.
d) Exporting Data for Records or Customized Analysis in Excel
Export all of the data for all courses and programs in your department as an excel file by
clicking the “Data Export” link in the program admin tab. An exported excel file then
downloads containing sheets of data each reporting the data from one of the entry pages
instructors completed. All programs in a department will be exported in the same excel file.
22
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
INSTRUCTORS
Visit www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat to see the How to Use Cat: For Instructors video.
1. My Courses Homepage
Any instructor who has taught a course in the last 2 years should have their courses appear at
the bottom of the “My Courses” homepage. If a course does not appear, possible reasons are:
• Course was officially listed under another instructor or the program chair or the Dean
• Course was an independent study or section of another course code officially
When Instructors Teach Multiple Offerings of the Same Course
If you teach multiple identical sections of the same course within or across years, you can
copy the data from a completed course section to the empty other section(s).
How: You need to enter in the information for one course offering (section) and then you can
export it to the other sections assuming:
1. there is data in one section that you are exporting from
2. there is no data entered into the other section (same or different year) your
exporting to
3. you are the instructor or have permissions to enter data for both sections
If these conditions hold, then in the start page for the completed course offering click the
“Summary” link.
23
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
At the top of the summary page there will be “Copy data to another section of this course”
link if all three conditions (above) were met.
Clicking that “Copy data to another section of this course” link will reveal a dropdown
menu. Select the course offering you want to copy the data to, then press the “Copy now”
button. The “Data copied” sign should then appear.
Once the data has been exported (copied), then you can modify the information the new
section to add additional assignments or make other changes that reflect any revisions to
your course.
24
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
1. My Instructional Methods
From the dropdown menus select the extent to which you use each of the teaching
strategies. The values do not have to total, so you could do several strategies “mostly.” When
you are completed the Instructional Methods page, please press “Next” button or return to
the “Start page”
The instructional methods listed in CAT are derived from
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/index.html
25
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
2. My Assessment Methods
Click the “add assessment method” link to select an assessment and provide details about
assessment type, timing, feedback and if required to proceed in the program. See instructor
video at www.usask.ca/gmcte/cat for step-by-step walk through.
What if the final exam contains both closed-questions and open-ended questions?
Enter in as two separate assessments with the appropriate proportion of the final overall
grade noted. For example if a final exam is worth 45% and 30% of that 45% is closedquestions and 15% was open-ended questions then enter it is as shown above & circled with
the blue box.
26
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
There is an error when I try deleting an assessment, what can I do?
Most likely the assessment is linked to a course outcome. If you get an error when trying to
delete an assessment, such as “Final exam” in the second section “My Assessment
Methods” of entering course offering data, then double-check if this assessment is linked to a
course outcome in section 4 (“How I Assess for My Course Learning Outcomes”). Delete that
connection and then try deleting the assessment again.
3. My Course Learning Outcomes
In the My course learning Outcomes section, enter in the learning outcomes for your course:
• Enter each outcome one at a time
• A maximum of 20 learning outcomes can be entered.
• There is maximum of 400 characters per learning outcome
If copying and pasting see note above about **Copying from Word (p. 14).
Click edit icons to change assessment name or description.
Use arrow icons
to change order of assessment types or groups.
Use trashcan to delete assessment type
4. How I assess for My Course Learning Outcomes
Select a course outcome and a corresponding assessment from each dropdown menu. The
options are drawn from the course outcomes and assessments you entered earlier. The
options stay the same allowing you to pair each course outcome with several assessments or
each assessment with several course outcomes. If you need to revise the options, press
“previous” to return to the assessment and course outcome pages.
27
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
While pairing, consider questions such as: "How do I know if my students accomplish this
outcome?" Some outcomes may be measured by non-graded means (e.g., participation).
5. My Course Within this Program
Use the drop down menus to indicate the level of emphasis and depth placed on each
program outcome during the course.
In the column titled "Emphasis", select the extent of instructional emphasis your course
places on that program outcome. In the final "Depth" column, select from the pull down
menu the level of depth at which your course addresses that program outcome. For example,
an introductory course related to a program outcome may specify a low amount of emphasis
at an introductory depth. These amounts can be specified by a program, for example, > 3% =
minimally, > 5% = somewhat, > 10% considerably, and >33% fully or <1 class, 1 class, 2-3
class, and across many classes.
28
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
29
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
6. My Course Outcomes in Relation to Program Outcomes
From the dropdown menu select the course outcome that relates to each program outcome.
• To remove a pairing select “remove outcome”
• If there is no match select “No match to a course outcome”
30
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
7. Some Final Questions
Each program can select some final questions including textboxes, dropdown menus, and
checkboxes. The question of “How long did it take to enter all the data?” is a default
question.
8. Summary Page
The summary page (right) shows all of the 7 data entry sections in a
single webpage for review and any additional revisions.
The summary page also includes the link for copying data from one
course offering to another – see the “When Instructors Teach Multiple
Offerings of the Same Course” instructions.
Reviewing and Tracking Changes in My Courses
To compare course offerings (across years, sections or courses), display
or print off the summary pages of each course offering. Programs
Admin can also display or print off summary bar charts based on a subset of selected courses or specific terms (e.g., Fall 2011 labeled
200109). Programs may also export the data for their program to excel
sheets, where they can then produce an unlimited number of specific
reports or analyses.
31
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
SYSTEM ADMIN
1. Adding of a Home Department to a New or Outside-Department Course
Why: Allows a program to create course offerings, assign instructors, and include the course’s
data in program summary. Allows instructors to rate the department program outcomes.
How: After a program admin creates the new course or receives permission from a course’s
host department, go to the system admin tab click “edit/add organization” and select the
requesting department. Select the course code (e.g., “BASK”) and check the appropriate box
(e.g., “115) or select all. Then “save courses for Organization”
32
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
2. Create Organization
To change or create a new department, click “Edit/Add Organization” in the system admin
tab and select appropriate organization to edit, or “create new” to add new department.
3. Manage Organizational Permissions
To give an individual program admin status for a department, click “Manage Organizational
Permissions” in the system admin tab. A listing of departments will appear. Click “Edit
permissions”
In the popup box, select “Add a person”.
Type in the NSID (username) and click “Look up First and Last name” to double-check or use
the Last name search. Before closing remember to press “Add”.
Type in NSID
33
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
4. Manage System Permissions
To give an individual system admin permissions, click “Manage System Permissions” in the
system admin tab and click the “Systems Permissions” link.
Then “Add a person” link. In the popup box type the person’s NSID (username) and doublecheck using “Lookup First and Last name” or use the “Last name search” button. Press
“Add”.
Type in NSID
34
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
5. Importing Courses into CAT
About a month into the term, import courses into CAT. The data is pulled directly from the
institution’s list of courses that includes information on offerings, instructors, class size etc.
Select appropriate term. Double-check that courses have not already be imported. Import
during quiet times (e.g., weekends)
6. Manage Characteristics (e.g., K, S, V)
In the system admin tab, select “Manage Characteristics” to add new options for the
characteristic set that program can select for characterizing program outcomes/course
outcomes. To add options with a set click “add option”.
Or click “Create new characteristic” at the bottom.
35
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
7. Manage Assessment Methods (e.g., final exam)
In the system admin tab, select “Manage Assessment Methods” to add new assessment
types or change assessment categories that instructors see.
Click edit icons
Use arrow icons
Use trashcan
to change assessment name or description.
to change order of assessment types or groups.
to delete assessment type
36
The Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness
8. Organizational Outcomes
System admin can also edit the listed organization outcomes through the same settings link
in the program admin table.
Common Buttons
•
To save press the save button
at the bottom left corner of the window.
However, this button will not close a popup data entry window.
•
To close a popup data entry window press the close link
corner.
•
Click edit icons
to change name or description.
•
Use arrow icons
to change order of items.
•
Use trashcan
at the top right
to delete item.
37