Master of Liberal Studies Third Year Review Written Report

Evaluation Rubric

Assessment contact person, and person preparing the report, (if different):

Mike Keen

Attach 2004, 2005 and 2006 annual reports

Attach an updated departmental assessment plan

Describe any changes to the program's educational goals since the last Third Year Review, and the rationale for those changes.

As we have indicated for the last four years in our assessment reports, the MLS Program has been undergoing a major curriculum revision and review.  This has included the creation of a new assessment regime to match our new program and policies.  In our 2006 assessment report, we listed the new educational goals for the program.  They have not been altered in the last year.

Describe any assessment techniques used for measuring the Educational Goals that have been added or discontinued since the last Third Year Review, and the rationale for those changes

Based on the Barbara Walvoord Assessment Workshop of a few years ago, we have created an entirely new assessment regime; see Master of Liberal Studies Assessment Plan (approved 4/06).  In it we list our learning goals and then employ one direct measure and three indirect measures.  The direct measure is a review of the each student’s capstone work by the MLS Assessment Committee which consists of three MLS faculty members.  The indirect measures involve a Graduate Exit Survey (see attached), the Campus-wide graduate alumni survey being created by the Office of Graduate Programs, and an external review every five years (see attached self-study, external review, and response from the last go round).  Results are reported to the MLS faculty, discussed, and appropriate action taken in response.

Attach any assessment instruments that have been used during the past three years, and the data collected, (or, summarized data, if that is more appropriate.)

As we have just fully completed our assessment instruments during the last semester, we have yet to fully implement them.  We have created a series of rubrics that will allow us to assess each of our learning goals based on student capstone materials (see attached rubric).  No systematic and reliable data has yet been collected.  This will begin May 07.

What analysis has been done with this data? What conclusions has your department drawn?

As noted above, no reliable data has yet been collected.  We did pretest some of our measures against student materials and revised our measures and rubrics based on these exercises.  We anticipate a full implementation of our annual assessment regime for the first time at the end of this semester.

What changes have been made to the program as a result? (Curriculum, classes offered, classes discontinued, scheduling, advising, faculty education etc. . .)

We have strengthened the program, added additional academic support to contribute to student success (i.e., an intro course as well as a project proposal course), and we have added a new public intellectual track that has received much positive interest at the national Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Conference.

How did assessment data and analysis support these changes?

These changes were supported primarily by informal assessment of faculty engaged in the program.

What changes does the department plan to make in the coming years to the program and to assessment techniques, and why?

At this point, we plan to implement the full assessment program and then see what kinks still need to be worked out.  We have no specific plans at this time to make any changes until we get some hard data.

How were faculty, students, administration, alumni and other groups involved in assessment?

Up to this point, there has been no formal involvement of students or alumni.  The MLS Faculty has been involved at every step in creating and approving the new MLS program and policies, as well as the assessment plan.  We have worked with Salina Shrofel, Associate VC for Academic Affairs to ensure our policies are in line with the more general policies being created by the Graduate Council and submitted to the Academic Senate for approval.

How were assessment data and results shared with faculty, students, administration and alumni?

Each year, our assessment committee has reported back to the MLS faculty and discussed its findings.   These have led to the ongoing development and final revision of the program that is now complete and has take just over 3 years.

In one paragraph, please summarize the most important impacts of the assessment of student learning on the program.

At this point, we can not point to any direct impacts of a fully developed and formalized assessment regime on our students.  We expect this will change of the next few years as we put are new program and assessment regime into practice.

Is there any other information that you would like included in this report?

I would like to thank the MLS faculty members who have worked hard and long to review and revise our MLS program and create an assessment regime that reflects our learning goals and involves our students.  In addition to the revitalization and updating of the program, we have also created a new Master of Liberal Studies Academic Handbook which lists our admissions criteria, curriculum requirements, academic policies, grading standards and expectations, and expectations for the capstone requirements.  This is now online at http://www.iusb.edu/~sbmls/.  I would also like to thank the Assessment Committee for its patience as we have worked through this process over the last 4 years.  Finally, I would like to inform the Committee that next year a new Director will be in place and encourage it to give him or her same support as I have enjoyed.

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