Excerpted Memorandum:
The General Education Assessment with Expert Panel Review
Note: Please see the PDF which has complete documents including the rubric.
This excerpted .doc version is offered only for faculty who need to paste the text into their syllabi.
Class IDs and Logins are in the PDF.
You need these to upload the student work as described below. Please use the PDF.
To:
All instructors teaching ECO-201, PSY 121, SSC-101
CC:
All Center Directors and Academic Affairs Administrators
From: Department Chairs: Dr. Barbara Caldwell, Dr. Kevin Kieffer, Dr. Heather Parker,
Re:
General Education Writing Assignment Information (embedded assessment) Updated Nov. 2011
The purpose of this memo is to provide specific information and instructions to all instructors regarding
the general education writing assignment with expert panel review that has been implemented in all
sections of ECO-201, PSY 121, SSC-101 over the past two years. As you know, we assess the general
education program using this assignment in order to improve the program and to better understand the
strengths (and the areas to strengthen) for our students. This document provides details on the purpose
of the writing assessment, the prompt that will be used, the text that instructors are required to include in
their syllabus, timeline for completion, the use of Turnitin.com to collect assignments, and the rubric used
to score the writing assignments.
TWO CHANGES TO THE PROCESS BEGINNING JANUARY 2012
The first major change that will be implemented January 2012 has been in the use of the use of
Turnitin.com in response to feedback from instructors and students as well as in response to
changes in eCollege. Students will no longer be required to upload their papers into a special
account for this assignment. Instead instructors are being asked to upload the papers, ungraded,
at one time at the end of each term. Directions on how to do this are included in this letter. The
second major change is that faculty members are no longer required to include special text
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explaining the purpose of the assignment to students. The assignment should blend in as part of
the syllabus now that students are no longer required to upload their papers. Any other
descriptive text is left up to the discretion of the department chair and the course designers.
YOUR ROLE
Your role is to assign, collect, and submit the writing assignment, which for the purpose of this
assessment will be graded by a panel of expert faculty members using randomly selected papers.
The assignment is not be used by the panel to assess individual students, course sections, or
instructors. The assessment is a snapshot of the student work, demonstrating their skills in
writing and critical thinking related to your field at the point in which they complete the
assignment. You do not need to prepare them to respond to the content of the question. You
do not need to “teach to the assessment” as this is a snapshot of the students’ general education
skills. The assessment is used to evaluate the program and to improve it, and it is also part of
our approach to assessing and improving teaching and learning, which is central to maintaining
our accreditation by the (SACS.)
HOW THIS RELATES TO YOUR CLASS
Following the directions in your syllabus, the assignment is also part of the student grade in your
course (typically 5%.) This provides an incentive for students to complete the assignment. This
also ensures that you are able to connect the assignment to the work you are doing in the class.
In the past instructors have used the assignment to teaching writing skills. Others have used it to
emphasize the connection between their discipline and social justice. Still others focus on using
the assignment to ask questions in order to strengthen critical thinking skills. The papers you
upload for the expert panel review should be as they were turned in; without grades or feedback
included. This letter includes a faculty-developed rubric that you can use as you grade the
individual assignments for your classes.
PROMPT – THE QUESTION THAT STUDENTS MUST ANSWER IN THE OVERVIEW LETTER
All instructors are required to use the writing assignment prompt that is included in the “Welcome
Letter for Students” that is used in your class, following the directions given in that letter. If you
are teaching in the Center for Online Learning (COL) the information is already added to your
COL syllabus and it is planned into the module. If you are not teaching in COL please add the
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descriptive text below to your syllabus and incorporate the deadline for the assignment as it is
described below. When you plan to assign the assessment, please distribute the “Welcome
Letter to Students” which includes the question and the directions.
INSTRUCTORS UPLOADING THE PAPERS INTO TURNITIN.COM

Instructors are to upload the papers in one folder into an account specifically set aside for this
assessment. Please see the list of logins you are to use for each section of your class, using
the www.turnitin.com Website.

If you have not used Turnitin.com before, please contact your center director or support staff
person for information on how to use this plagiarism prevention tool or see the Website to
learn more about it.

Because the Turnitin.com portal used to collect these assignments will be set to “draft,” no
originality reports will be generated for the student papers submitted for this writing
assignment. This means that you can have reports run for your students’ papers without any
prior record on file with Turnitin.com.

Because we will not have access to originality reports for these papers, we expect you to
notify the chair of the department regarding any writing assignment papers that you believe
are plagiarized. It is also suggested that you send any students suspected of plagiarism
through the Academic Standards review process.
DATE OF COMPLETION
If you are teaching in COL please follow the due dates listed in class according to the
module that contains this assignment. If you are not teaching in COL, please ensure that
you have submitted the writing assignment to the Turnitin.com portal no later than the
second to last week of your term.
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This should allow you time to include their work in your own grading. Most likely you will
want to require a due date that is earlier in the term to allow (a) more time to follow-up
with students who do not complete the assignment and to also allow you (b) more time to
grade the assignment and use it within your own class.
RUBRIC
Attached you will find a rubric that you can give to students so that they see the
standards that are being used to evaluate their papers. (Or e-mail Laura Blasi if you
need a copy: laura.blasi@saintleo.edu.) You may also decide to use it in your own
grading; however, you are not required to do so and you may grade their papers in the
manner you would normally grade them. A faculty committee will be presented with a
random sample of all writing assignments for independent evaluation. The committee will
use the rubric shown below. We have improved the directions and the process with
feedback from faculty members. Let us know about your ideas and experiences through
this online survey:
Embedded Assessment Survey
http://tiny.cc/GE_Assess
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UPLOADING PAPERS USING A ZIP FILE
When you are ready to upload the student papers, make sure you upload the papers that are not graded.
Make sure the students have followed the protocol for naming their paper and for creating the heading.
This format has been developed to make sure papers are not affiliated with instructor names. You may
want to use the logins below and load the papers one at a time.
It is also possible to package the folder that contains these papers into one zip file. This saves you time
and compresses the papers so they load more quickly. You can Google “making a zip file” or you can
follow the three steps below created using Microsoft Word on a PC.
1. Go to the folder where the papers are stored. 2. Right click on that folder once so it is highlighted.
When you do this hold the mouse button down to view the menu. 3. In the menu go to “Send To” then to
“Compressed Zip Folder” and follow the steps from that point. At that point the computer should ask you
where you want to save the file and if you want to view it after it is compressed.
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