As part of the process of maintaining the high quality of our educational programs, the Computer Science Department asks that all instructors perform assessment of how well we are achieving the educational outcomes of the courses we are teaching.

A low achievement of the outcomes does not necessarily reflect poorly on the instructor. It may be an issue of the instructor needing to find a level of presentation appropriate to the students, or perhaps the outcomes themselves need to be revised. For example, if students consistly fail a certain examination question, then either the pedagogy needs to be modified or that material should be removed from the course, since otherwise class time is being wasted on that material. The important point is to identify when any necessary remedial action needs to be taken, in the interests of quality assurance.

Pre-Course Review (PCR)

To demonstrate that we are "closing the loop" with our assessment regime, you should review the ICA from the previous time the course was taught, and fill in the PCR form documenting how you plan to incorporate what was learned the last time the course was taught, into how you intend to teach it this time.

Student Performance Assessment Data (SPAD)

Each course has a set of observable outcomes that are expected for students finishing the course. These outcomes are listed in the CS department course catalog: click on a course name to find its course outcomes. "Direct" assessment consists of measuring student scores using instruments (assignments, exam questions, homeworks) that measure students' observable achievement of the outcomes.

Each time you teach a course, you need to record which course outcomes are assessed and how they are assessed. This is done with the Student Performance Assessment Data form (PDF).

1. Typically about a third to a half of the course outcomes should be tested each semester, with enough variation over the semesters that all course outcomes are tested with equal frequency.
2. If you have a teaching assistant for the course, then they are responsible for doing the data collection, and they will be trained as part of TA orientation in doing this. If you do not have a TA, the department has a pool of Assessment TAs whose job is to do the data collection for you. Contact the TA Coordinator * to find out who your Assessment TA is. Remember that the job of an Assessment TA is purely data collection, not grading.
3. Assessment instruments include assignments or parts of assignments, exam questions, etc. Updated 12/20/06: You should determine at what level you consider work to be good, fair and poor (based on how well it demonstrates their understanding of the material). For each such instrument, the TA will collect the number of students who submitted work that is good, fair or poor. You or the TA should enter this information in the SPAD.
4. You should save copies of three student responses for each instrument: good, fair and poor. This information is necessary to evaluate the data entered in the SPAD. You will provide these student responses, along with the SPAD, to the CS department * at the end of the term. See below for more information.

Mid-Term Survey

In addition to direct assessment, you should also do "indirect assessment" through a mid-term course survey to allow the students to evaluate the course so far. A mid-term survey is better than an end-of-term survey because you will get more responses, and you will have time to correct any problems that students are experiencing with the course.

You should allow the students to remain anonymous in their answers, by having a student volunteer in the class collect the questionaires and bring them back to the department. The department will make copies for its records, and then return the surveys to you. The emphasis of this exercise is on promoting constructive feedback from students to the instructor. This is why it is important that you get the results of the surveys before the end of the semester.

Please use the mid-term survey provided. Do not change the questions provided. If you want to add some questions to the end of the survey, please keep it within two pages and also leave plenty of room for student responses. Remember, the longer a survey is, the less likely students are to fill it in carefully.

Instructor Course Assessment (ICA)

At the end of the course, you should fill in this Instructor Course Assessment form (PDF), which provides your own subjective assessment of the course for that term.

End of Term Procedures

At the end of the term, you should provide the following to the CS department administration *:

1. A copy of the SPAD, along with copies of each assessment instrument (exam, assignment spec) and, for each instrument, three student responses: good, okay and poor.
2. A copy of the ICA with your conclusions from teaching the course.
3. No need to return the mid-term surveys, we will have made copies before we gave them back to you.

Since we will need copies of student responses, it is probably easiest to give us this material in hardcopy. Either bring it to the office when you are on campus, or mail it to this address:

Course Assessment Coordinator (re CS XXX)
Dept of Computer Science
Stevens Institute of Technology
Hoboken, NJ 07030.

Replace "CS XXX" with the course you are teaching. If you want to provide the material e.g., via PDF files in a zipped archive file, you should contact the CS department administration * who will work with you on it. The department administration will be keeping track of the materials provided by each instructor for each course at the end of the term.