Program Assessment using Canvas Outcomes + Rubrics

[hmacdermott]

Howdy!

Just wondering about other higher ed institutions that are using Canvas for program assessment (but not the Program Assessment tool in Portfolium). I've found some helpful resources like https://www.k-state.edu/assessment/training/canvas/programlevelassessment.html and https://kb.iu.edu/d/awaw so I *think* I understand the process of how to set it up, but would love to hear from real people who are actively using Canvas for this purpose.

Anyone out there?

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
Helen

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there, @hmacdermott ...

I'm not sure if this directly answers your question, but we are using the Outcomes tool within Canvas at the account level.  I am a Canvas administrator at our school, and I do not teach courses.  So, the process I am describing is what we do at an admin level for our "master" courses.

We have 20 different statements (broken into five categories of four statements each) called "Career and Life Skills".  So, at the Canvas account level within the "Outcomes" tool, we have created five folders, and each of these contains four Career and Life Skills statements.

• How do I create outcome groups for an account? - Instructure Community
• How do I create an outcome for an account? - Instructure Community

Then, at the course level, some (but not all) assignments in a course may assess any number of these Career and Life Skills.  So, we import the set of Career and Life Skills from the account level to the course.  (I just import all 20 and remove any at the course level that won't be used...as that's a bit easier for me...but that's just the way I do it.)  Then, I will go to each assignment's rubric that will need one or more Career and Life Skills, and add it to the rubric.

• How do I find an existing outcome to add to a cour... - Instructure Community
• How do I align an outcome with a rubric in a cours... - Instructure Community

We are just a few months into this process, and we have a different department at our school where someone will be able to look more at how these Career and Life Skills are being assessed in courses.  I don't have a lot of information on that, unfortunately...as again, we are just getting started with this.

Again, I am not sure if this will be of any help to you, but I thought I'd share our process.  Hope this helps...for what it's worth.

[hmacdermott]

@Chris_Hofer, thanks so much for the reply and for sharing! I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my question.

We are new to trying to do program assessment in Canvas, so I'm trying to figure out what options we have. What you've described sounds like a common set up -- having professors import account-level (institutional) outcomes into their individual courses, adding relevant outcomes to a rubric, then adding a rubric to an assignment -- but I've been trying to set up a separate, stand-alone course for program assessment. 

No students will be enrolled in the course, so I'm adding "fake" accounts (so I can masquerade and submit collected artifacts to assignments) and those with the Teacher role would be members of the assessment committee, who would be doing the evaluating of artifacts. I'm not sure if I need a fake account for EVERY artifact or if I can use one fake student to submit to multiple assignments that have different rubrics, or if that would be problematic for reporting. 

Anyway, thank you again!