Western Carolina University
Program Assessment Plan
Business Computer Information Systems/Economics
College of Business
Assessment Plan for 2006-2007
Primary Contact:
Dr. Dan Clapper, Department Chair
Department Mission Statement
The mission of the Business Computer Information Systems (BCIS) program is
to teach students how to facilitate organizational attainment and maintenance
of competitive advantage in the global business environment through the
appropriate design, implementation, and management of current and
emerging information systems technology [HPA, 2006, Ch. 4, p. 20]
Summary of Alignment of Program Mission with College and
University Mission
This program mission directly supports the mission of the College of Business,
specifically the elements of student preparation for work in a global business
environment and the provision of students with “technological skills,
discipline-based knowledge, and career-enhancing skills.” Both the
department and the College serve to support declared aspirations of the
university mission, including “the ability to think critically, to communicate
effectively, to identify and resolve problems reflectively, and to use
information and technology responsibly…” and to foster “ proficiency in the
intellectual and technical skills of a disciplined study in the arts, sciences, or
professions.”
[[[ The Business Computer Information Systems (BCIS) program prepares
graduates for successful careers in information systems by:
•
•
•
Delivering a curriculum relevant to the needs of regional employers;
Emphasizing the role of information technology in the development of
business solutions;
Providing students with strong analytical skills and technological
expertise.
The program supports the University’s mission and commitment to the
community by providing businesses in North Carolina and the region with
graduates capable of being immediately productive, and a faculty responsive
to the region’s changes and growth. ]]]
•
Program Outcome Objectives [only one outcome need be assessed per year.
HPA, 2006, Ch. 3, p. 14]
Upon completion of the BCIS program, students are able to:
1. Apply current information technologies to manage information and
workflow and to solve IS problems.
2. Apply their understanding of computer networking to develop business
networking solutions.
3. Apply their application development knowledge to develop business
desktop and web-based software solutions.
4. Design and implement database solutions for businesses.
5. Would have had the opportunity to expand their core IT knowledge by
taking CIS electives covering current issues in the discipline.
¾ DAN: PC AND NETWORK SECURITY??
•
Outcome Measures [SEE ATTACHED EXCEL GRID FOR UPDATE]
•
Objective 1 Measures
o Successful completion of CIS 455 and student evaluations of the
course.
o Exit survey for graduating CIS majors.
o Informal conversations with recent alumni.
o Informal conversations with co-op/intern employers and alumni
employers.
o Next year: survey of alumni.
•
Objective 2 Measures
o Successful completion of CIS 235 and CIS 335 and student
evaluations of the courses.
o Exit survey for graduating CIS majors.
o Informal conversations with recent alumni.
o Informal conversations with co-op/intern employers and alumni
employers.
o Next year: survey of alumni.
•
Objective 3 Measures
o Successful completion of CIS 240 and CIS 340 and student
evaluations for the course.
o Exit survey for graduating CIS majors.
o Informal conversations with recent alumni.
o Informal conversations with co-op/intern employers and alumni
employers.
o Next year: survey of alumni.
•
Objective 4 Measures
o Successful completion of CIS 453 and CIS 465 and student
evaluations of the courses.
o Exit survey for graduating CIS majors.
o Informal conversations with recent alumni.
o Informal conversations with co-op/intern employers and alumni
employers.
o Next year: survey of alumni.
•
Objective 5 Measures
o
o
o
o
IT Environmental scan for current “hot” topics in the discipline.
Exit survey for graduating CIS majors.
Informal conversations with recent alumni.
Informal conversations with co-op/intern employers and alumni
employers.
Western Carolina University
Business Computer Information Systems/Economics
College of Business
Annual Assessment Report for 2005-2006
Primary Contact:
Dr. Dan Clapper, Department Chair
PLAN TEMPLATE [HPA, 2006, Appendix A, p. 43]
Due May 31, 2006
Intended Learning
Outcome
Curricular and/or Co-Curricular
Experiences
What will students know or
be able to do upon
completion of the program?
Where will students acquire the skills
and/or knowledge identified in the
outcome?
Measurable statement of the
desired output or what
students should know, think,
or be able to do upon
completion of the program.
Course(s) and/or experience(s) through which
students will acquire the skills and/or
knowledge identified in the outcome and what
level of learning students are expected t o
attain, i.e., basic, intermediate, or advanced.
If desired, use attached Outcome Deliver y
Matrix Template.
Method(s) of Assessment
How will you determine that the students
know or can do what you expect?
Methods of assessment must address the
outcome directly and identify who will be
responsible for implementing the assessment
measure, what data will be collected, and
when the data will collected and analyzed.
REPORT TEMPLATE [HPA, 2006, Appendix C, p. 47]
Due May 31, 2006
Intended
Learning
Outcome to
be Assessed
this Cycle
State the
outcome(s) that
the program has
chosen to assess
this annual cycle.
Method(s) of
Assessment
Results of
Assessment
Provide a summary of the
methods of assessment used
to assess the chosen
outcome. Note any changes
in the assessment measures
from the program’s official
assessment plan.
Results must include a
summary of major findings,
interpretation of the results,
and a description of how the
results were disseminated
to key stakeholders for
discussion.
Implementation Plan
Identify what programmatic or curricular
changes, if any, you will make as a result of
the assessment results.
Each recommended action must be specific
and relate directly to the outcome and
results of assessment. A description of the
timeline for action and the person(s)
responsible must be included. In addition,
please include a brief description of
resources that will be critical to
implementation of the actions proposed, if
applicable.
II. Assessment Report 2004-2005
As an outcome measure, we continued interviewing graduating seniors this year. The
interviews consisted of a fifteen to thirty minute meeting between the student and the
BCISE department head. Some interview meetings were with multiple students at the
same time, but for most meetings it was just the individual student in the meeting.
The meetings were an opportunity for the graduating seniors to give immediate feedback
on their thoughts and impressions of the CIS program. They were queried about the
overall program content and structure, the seven individual courses that comprise the
CIS curriculum, new elective CIS courses and potential new courses that might be added
in the future. The students all seemed to appreciate the opportunity to share their ideas
and thoughts – face-to-face – with the chair of the department.
•
Objective 1 findings and improvements that resulted:
Our measures indicated that students felt that the project-oriented nature of CIS 455
was valuable and would help prepare them for the real world.
•
Objective 2 findings and improvements that resulted:
Our measures indicated that students felt that the two course CIS 235 and CIS 335
sequence provides a solid foundation for preparing them for developing networking
solutions for businesses. Our students felt that the “hands-on” nature of both of the
courses was a much more valuable approach to mastering networking concepts than
a strictly textbook-oriented approach.
Despite (or perhaps because of) the success of our hands-on approach to
networking, our measures indicate that our students want these course to have an
even stronger emphasis on hands-on. By its very nature, hands-on networking
courses are very resource intensive – both in terms of instructor time in developing
useful lab exercises, but also in terms of funds needed for buying the equipment that
the students will need to use for their experiential learning.
To accommodate this student request we are planning and implementing a more
hands-on approach in both courses using our CIS Lab. Experiential learning in the
networking/system administrator area we believe is vital – but also time and resource
intensive. Our challenge is to overcome the administrative and scheduling
constraints to continue to add more experiential components to both CIS 235 and
CIS 335.
We also have found that there has been consistent interest among current students
in the possibility of working on some certifications while in the program. The value of
certifications for job hunting has also been a consistent point made in discussion with
our alumni. Dr. Bill Perry worked on this issue during the Spring 2005 and came up
with a way to insure that the content for CIS 335 was a solid preparation for
certification tests. In addition, he developed the first version of an entirely new option
for our students: a self-study independent study course that was designed solely to
prepare students for taking specific certification tests. This course will be supervised
by Dr. Perry, be taken after the completion of CIS 335, and will be designed
specifically as certification preparation. We plan on implementing a trial version of
this for Fall 2005 and then offering it a more general way for Spring 2006.
•
Objective 3 findings and improvements that resulted:
The instructors for CIS 240 and CIS 340 continued to work together to insure that
CIS 240 gave students the foundations they needed to do well in CIS 340. Feedback
from the students and observations of the instructors indicate that this effort it
yielding success.
To continue this effort, the instructors for both courses will meet numerous times to
discuss the core competencies that students should master in CIS 240 and how best
to achieve this.
Again this year our measures indicate that our students found the CIS 340 course to
be a demanding, but valuable course. But this spring semester, the student
feedback did not indicate that CIS 240 failed to prepare them for CIS 340.
•
Objective 4 findings and improvements that resulted:
Our measures indicated that students felt that the two course CIS 453 and CIS 465
sequence provides a solid foundation for preparing them for designing and
implementing solutions for businesses. It was felt that no changes needed to be
made to this sequence at this time.
•
Objective 5 findings and improvements that resulted:
Our measures indicate that our recently added Computer Hardware elective has
matured into a valuable addition to our curriculum. This course was added based on
student and alumni comments and has proven to be a sought after and highly
thought of course by our students.
Environmental scanning and other measures indicated that the option for students to
prepare for and take certifications before they graduated could be very valuable.
Objective 2 (above) describes how we have completed the design work of adding
that to our curriculum and our timetable for implementing it.
For the 2005-2006 we will have two new tenure-track CIS faculty join our
department. We plan on reviewing our entire curriculum as a faculty and examining
how we can raised the level of integration between courses and continue to increase
the amount of experiential learning in our curriculum.
ACTION VERBS
[FROM HPA, 2006, Ch. 5, p. 29]
It is helpful to use specific action verbs associated with the various learning domains in the construction of meaningful
learning outcomes. Use of these verbs helps to explicitly articulate what you expect a student to demonstrate in the course
of learning outcomes assessment.
Learning Domain
Examples of Action Verbs
Knowledge
Articulate, describe, define, name, indicate, order, recognize, know, repeat, memorize, label,
tabulate, quote, etc.
Comprehension
Discuss, explain, interpret, distinguish, suggest, summarize, understand, translate, classify,
contrast, etc.
Application
Apply, investigate, experiment, solve, practice, predict, utilize, develop, illustrate, etc.
Analysis
Analyze, categorize, correlate, inform, infer, prioritize, criticize, differentiate, examine,
interpret, etc.
Synthesis
Arrange, collect, compose, assemble, compile, create, design, formulate, organize, manage,
propose, validate, etc.
Evaluation
Rate, conclude, appraise, evaluate, judge, defend, grade, assess, etc.
Receiving
Identify, select, choose, describe, etc.
Responding
Recite, discuss, present, answer, etc.
Valuing
Describe, explain, differentiate, join, share, etc.
Organization
Order, arrange, combine, integrate, synthesize, generalize, etc.
Characterization by
Value
Qualify, practice, listen, influence, share, propose, etc.
3/19/2006 Office of Assessment 29
Learning Domain
Examples of Action Verbs
Perception
Identify, detect, describe, isolate, etc.
Set
Respond, show, react, display, etc.
Guided Response
Construct, manipulate, assemble, etc.
DIRECT MEASURES [FROM HPA, 2006, Ch. 6, p.33]
Direct measures of student learning are those designed to directly measure what a
targeted subject knows or is able to do (i.e., requires a subject to actually demonstrate
the skill or knowledge). Direct measures of student learning utilize actual student work
products as the basis for evaluation as opposed to indicators of student perception or
satisfaction. Common direct measures include evaluation of:
• Capstone projects or exams
• Culminating experiences (e.g. internships, senior thesis, etc.)
• Juried review of student projects or performances
• Student work samples (e.g., case study responses, research papers, essay responses,
etc.)
• Collection of student work samples (portfolios)
• Exit exams (standardized/proprietary exams or locally developed exams)
• Pre- and post-tests
• Performance on licensure or certification exams (must have access to subset or item
analysis to be considered a direct measure, overall pass rates, while an important
and informative indicator of program effectiveness, are insufficient in terms of
learning outcomes assessment)