Annual Assessment Report
Program leaders of all standalone degree and certificate programs should provide a short annual report to briefly describe assessment activities of the preceding academic year and any modifications to your curriculum or assessment plan. Keep it simple and focus on the big issues first.
Each annual report should be one to two pages and respond to five questions:
| 1) What was your department's goal this year with regard to program assessment for the given program? |
| What learning objectives did the department study? What curricular or instructional changes did the department consider or implement? |
| 2) How did your department accomplish that goal? |
| What educational activities align with the response to question 1? |
| 3) How do you know whether the department was successful? |
| What evidence did you use to support your response to question 2? What process did you use? What defensible standards did you use to evaluate student achievement? |
| 4) What did you learn? |
| What observations or conclusions did you reach regarding question 3? What stood out? |
| 5) What is the department going to do next? |
| What modifications, if any, does the department want to consider or implement as a result of observations and conclusions? How did this process inform decisions about curriculum and instruction? |
The first year's response to these questions for departments who are new to academic assessment will likely describe the process your department experienced to adopt the new assessment process and a brief description of plans going forward. You do not necessarily need to gather evidence or measure student learning in the first year. Short reports in subsequent years, however, should refer to evidence and analysis and how that evidence is used to inform decisions.
Annual assessment reports serve several purposes:
- As a record for you and your department colleagues to refer to in the future, especially for new members of the department or for changes in department leadership
- As examples for faculty colleagues as they begin or continue the program assessment process at Stony Brook
- As documentation to support future curriculum proposals to improve student learning
- As building blocks for future self-study reports
- To pace your department’s efforts to produce a seven year Comprehensive Assessment report.
- To accumulate evidence of sustained and thoughtful discussions about the curriculum for our accreditors and regulators (SUNY, NYSED, MSCHE, USDE)
- To accumulate evidence of sustained assessment to drive program improvement
Annual reports are due in June of each year. A committee of faculty and qualified
assessment staff periodically reviews reports and provides feedback. This feedback
helps departments improve their assessment activities, with the goal of becoming more
effective through high-impact and low effort activities.