DASA Facilities’ commitment to engaging in best practices was made even more impressive because the unit was just onboarded to the annual assessment process in 2019-2020. As they prepared to engage in assessment, DASA Facilities staff conducted an audit of their existing datasets and mapped the data to their new outcomes. This revealed that DASA Facilities collects enough on-going, relevant data in their work order system to measure most of their outcomes without additional data collection. During data analysis staff identified opportunities to improve students’ experiences with Facilities through additional staff training and the refinement of existing processes. Integrating their assessment into their existing workflows saved staff time and offered them an opportunity to analyze their datasets from a different perspective.

Academic Advising Programs and Services (AAPS) used multiple data collection methods to assess one of their learning outcomes, “students will be able to plan their degree progression.” Through use of multiple methods, faculty and staff in AAPS collected direct and indirect evidence of students’ abilities to plan their degree. Faculty applied rubrics to student work and utilized queries in the Student Information System (SIS) to observe how students were demonstrating the skills they learned in class related to degree planning; additionally, they analyzed survey data to better understand students’ self-reported confidence and behaviors towards planning their degree. Through triangulation, AAPS was able to have confidence that they were meeting their outcomes because they measured it three different ways! Using methods that produced direct and indirect evidence can mean that your results are more reliable.

The Academic Success Center (ASC), formerly the University Tutorial Center, has engaged in assessment best practices for many years. A strength of their assessment process is the emphasis staff place on growing a culture of assessment through collaboration. As ASC cycles through their outcomes assessment, staff share the responsibility for leading various assessment activities. Through this collaboration, ASC has developed a robust assessment toolkit with various methods and strategies for assessing outcomes. ASC has created a culture of assessment by encouraging staff to take the lead on assessment projects and by providing resources, tools and support for their efforts.

Advising Technology collects robust data sets through GPS (NC State’s advising platform). This year Advising Technology assessed how well faculty and staff engage with Student Success GPS as an advising tool. Advising Technology staff found that faculty advisors across the board were less engaged with the platform than full-time professional advisors. Results also indicated that engagement levels were uneven across the academic colleges and within specific academic and co-curricular units. To address these areas for improvement, Advising Technology decided to customize workshops with faculty, intentionally partner with colleges with lower levels of engagement, and devote additional effort to supporting campus partners with minimal usage.