Aligning Course Learning Outcomes with Institutional Learning Outcomes in Canvas

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello.  Is there a way to align Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) with Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) in Canvas?

Background: We do not currently use the native Canvas "Outcomes" tool (either at the account or course level) to put our CLOs or ILOs into the Canvas interface.  However, last year I worked with someone from our IT department to gather all the CLOs of our courses and import them into our Student Information System (SIS), Colleague.  Once the CLOs were successfully added to the courses in our Colleague SIS, our IT guy was able to move those CLOs into part of our Simple Syllabus LTI integration so that instructors and students see those CLOs within their Simple Syllabus documents.  So, even though we have our CLOs now part of our Simple Syllabus documents, we still do not have these CLOs added to the native "Outcomes" tool of Canvas.

We would like to be able to do the following:

• gauge student performance (achieved mastery, intermediate, etc.)
• pre-load outcomes for tracking
• attach a rubric and have outcomes attached to it (I know how to do this)
• see if students are achieving mastery on the rubric
• get data on the above

I tried adding one of our ILOs at the Canvas account level, and then I tried adding a CLO to my sandbox course at the Course level.  I was hoping I could somehow align the CLO with the ILO there, but I was having difficulties doing that.  Also, when I created a new rubric for an assignment, I could only select from a list of outcomes I had in my sandbox course at the Course level.  There wasn't a way for me to select the ILO I had added at the account level.  I was in our school's "beta" environment where it looks like the enhanced rubrics feature has been enabled.

Is anyone using both CLOs and ILOs successfully in Canvas?  Would welcome feedback on this.  Thanks!

[ldavenport4015]

Hello Chris, 

We are not importing any ILOs into Canvas, but we are successfully using Account Level Outcomes for a specific graduate program and using them to measure student mastery across the program. 

We do align the Account level outcomes to the Rubric associated with the assignments, and when the instructors grade on the rubric (and aligned Outcome) the data is gathered in the Course Learning Mastery Gradebook AND in the Outcomes Results Admin Report in Canvas. That report is where the muscle is for reporting on the student mastery across the program. 

You should be able to Import the Account Level Outcomes into the course from the Outcomes Index page in the course, and then align to the rubric. We have created Blueprint courses that include Account Level Rubrics created with aligned Account Level Outcomes and use those to populate our semester courses. I have only done  limited tested with enhanced rubrics feature in our Beta environment, but I am able to use the Account Level Outcomes with the enhanced rubrics enabled. 

Here is the Canvas Guide I used to get started: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-find-an-existing-outcome-to-add-to-a-co...

[JennyDruckrey]

Hi Chris,

We are also very early on our outcomes journey and have experimented with course level, program level, and institution level outcomes.  We actually had a fairly successful pilot where we aligned our ILO's to rubric tied to a no-submission assignment that instructors could import into their course from our private instance of the Canvas commons.  Instructors were able to score the rubric based on a specified artifact in their course and we were able to pull the data using the "Outcomes Results" report at the account level.  The data was then combined with student data in a PowerBI dashboard, giving us the start of usable results.  Faculty were impressed with the ease of scoring, and we had quite a few participants.

We've actually begun importing some course level and program level outcomes at the account level as well.  As in the article shared by @ldavenport4015 , we import the course level outcomes (from the account) to the course.  This still allows instructors to view course level data in the mastery gradebook and associate course outcomes, program outcomes, or ILO's to their rubrics or quizzes.  By creating these outcomes at the account level, we can pull all the data at the account level and compare course/program level outcomes across course offerings and terms.

There are still some things I would like to work out. We realize that this could expand rapidly if more instructors want to utilize course or program level outcomes.  We need to finalize our naming conventions, maintenance process, determine how the data will be used, and most importantly automate and scale our data analysis process.  We're looking to do this with Canvas Data 2, but this also requires the help of our IT department, which is short on time due to a change in SIS.  We also are debating if we need to have some guidelines surrounding how outcomes are scored, since we have a variety of scales that exist currently.  We certainly don't have all of the answers yet, but at least we're able to start exploring the process.

I've been importing all of our outcomes currently using the Outcomes csv import file.  This could be useful if you'd like to import large batches.

I'd enjoy hearing about your experience or from anyone else who is utilizing/exploring outcomes.  

-Jenny

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello @JennyDruckrey …

Thanks for the reply.  I’ve also been looking at the CSV file on how to import our Course Learning Outcomes into Canvas.  How are you doing this?  Do you have sub-accounts in your Canvas environment separated out by program?  For example, we have sub-accounts like “Advertising Design”, “Art History”, “Communication Design”, and “Transportation Design”.  Are you creating separate CSV files for your own sub-accounts and uploading the CLOs to those sub-accounts?  Or, are you creating a folder/category structure at the main Canvas account level for Outcomes and adding all CLOs for all programs there?

I am imagining that the CSV files could get pretty involved…based on what I see in the example CSV files I’ve been looking at.

Also, as it relates to your Institutional Learning Outcomes, where are you initially adding those?  Are these also being added at the sub-account level … in the same areas where the CLOs would be placed?  Maybe an example screenshot or two would be helpful from you.

Thanks, in advance, for any additional info you would be willing to share.

[ldavenport4015]

@Chris_Hofer , 

I thought I would clarify how we load our Program Learning Objectives for Mastery assessment across a Program. 

We do use the csv imports and a sub-account structure. Formatting is a bit squirrelly on the csv so I found that if I add the first few via the Outcomes User Interface, export that and use it as an import guide it helps tremendously. I've attached a sample import.

We found (from experience) that if you want to isolate the use of Program Outcomes to certain program courses (i.e., you don't want them available for other courses outside the program to use) then a sub-account will prevent the unintentional use of the PLO. Another benefit of using sub-accounts for PLO is the Admin level reporting and sub-account level Outcomes interface can be accessed by program leadership via sub-account admin privileges without access to courses and data not in their program.

For our current Healthcare Administration MHA program our process is:

1. Program Level Outcomes were added at the sub-account level.
2. Account level Rubrics were added at the sub-account level for consistency of assessment.
3. By SIS Import, we move all semester courses in the program to a sub-account named for the accreditation body. 
4. We have created Blueprint courses that contain Course level and Program level outcomes, assessments (assignments) with sub-account level rubrics with aligned Outcomes. Those are used to populate course content prior to instructors being given the course to customize. Blueprints have allowed us to lock certain files and assignments that need to be available and completed for program accreditation. NOTE: Blueprint assignment locks do not lock a rubric to an assignment (sigh).
5. Instructors assess using the attached rubrics with aligned outcomes throughout the semester. 
6. We export the Student Outcomes Admin Report at the end of the semester.
7. We visualize the data using SAS Viya (I'd recommend ANY other program - I'm stuck with that due to our Data Governance)

Here is a screenshot of our sub-account Outcomes page: