Wabash Study Timeline

 

May 2010

In their applications, institutions will identify one or two institutional representatives to serve as Wabash Study Campus Leaders. Campus Leaders will have the primary responsibility on campus for ensuring that their institution engages in the work of the study, including the collection of student work, and they will serve as the main contact for the Center of Inquiry. These individuals may come from the administration, faculty, or staff. Regardless of their specific role on campus, it is essential that the Wabash Study Campus Leaders:

  1. are interested in using evidence to promote improvement in student learning and experiences;
  2. have sufficient social and political capital on campus to communicate with and gather faculty, staff, administrators, and students together to work on this project;
  3. have sufficient administrative support to work with campus constituencies on developing formative responses to assessment evidence.

If institutions have individuals who feel they lack sufficient knowledge about assessment but are otherwise interested in and capable of fulfilling the role of Wabash Study Campus Leaders, we suggest that institutions designate these individuals as Campus Leaders and that they join our Teagle Assessment Scholar Development Program. This program is designed to help individuals, regardless of their disciplinary background, develop their skills at using evidence to promote changes in complex campus environments. For more information on this program and how it can be linked with an institution's participation in the Wabash Study, please see the Teagle Assessment Scholar website.

If the Campus Leader leaves the institution during the study, the institution will need to designate a replacement.

Institutions will also commit to setting aside a total of $10,000 for responding to the assessment evidence gathered in the study. (See Call for Participation for details on cost)

July 2010

The Center of Inquiry selects participating institutions.

July–September 2010

Center of Inquiry staff work with institutions to document assessment data they already possess to create a first draft of their Assessment Portfolio. These conversations will also help institutions determine what additional surveys or outcome measures they will administer in 2010–11 as well as how they will use rubrics to evaluate student work.

Representatives from Wabash Study institutions participate in a kickoff meeting at Wabash College either on September 17–19 or on September 24–26, 2010.

  • Each institution will send a team of three people, including the Wabash Study Campus Leader, to the kickoff meeting. The team should include at least one representative of academic affairs and one representative of student affairs.
  • The purpose of the meeting is to:
    1. introduce teams from different campuses to one another;
    2. begin identifying the contents of an institution's Assessment Portfolio;
    3. identify specific learning outcomes or areas of student experience that the institution would like to improve;
    4. identify and discuss concerns and possible obstacles at each campus;
    5. begin the processes necessary to gather student work and use rubrics.

Fall 2010

Center of Inquiry staff will work with participating institutions to plan site visits. The structure and timing of the visits will be based on the specific needs of each institutions. The visits will begin in the Spring of 2011 and continue as needed throughout the project.

Those institutions that do not already have CIRP or Wabash Study incoming student data will administer the CIRP Freshman Survey. Institutions that want to include the CLA in their Assessment Portfolio, but that do not have recent data, will administer the CLA to first-year students. Institutions begin collecting student work for the rubric component of the study and send data for their Assessment Portfolios to the Center of Inquiry as they become available.

Spring 2011

Institutions that do not have recent data will administer NSSE or YFCY/CSS and CAAP, the ETS Proficiency Profile, or CLA.

  • CAAP and the Proficiency Profile (formerly the Measure of Academic Proficiency or MAPP) to first- and fourth-year students, CLA to fourth-year students.
  • Institutions that select CAAP or the Proficiency Profile may conduct their administration for first-year students in fall 2010 instead.

Institutions continue collecting student work for the rubric component of the study and work with the Center of Inquiry and Teagle Assessment Scholars as needed to develop campus mechanisms for gathering student work and using rubrics.

Institutions continue to work with the Center of Inquiry and Teagle Assessment Scholars as needed to develop mechanisms for disseminating, discussing, and making sense of assessment data on campus and  send data for their Assessment Portfolios to the Center of Inquiry as they become available.

Summer 2011

Workshops are held at institutions to apply rubrics to student work. Institutions send the final data components for their Assessment Portfolios to the Center of Inquiry, including the rubrics and information generated from the rubric workshops.

Fall 2011

Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Scholars continue site visits and conversations as needed to collaborate with faculty, staff, administrators, and students to evaluate evidence collected in the first year of the study for the Assessment Portfolios.

  • Possible activities include merging quantitative data from different sources, mining data for patterns and trends, and conducting student focus groups or interviews to follow up on quantitative data.
  • The specific activities will be customized for each campus, with the overall goal being to use the evidence in a campus's Assessment Portfolio to identify actionable areas for improvement.

Spring 2012

Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Scholars continue site visits and conversations with institutions on an as-needed basis.

Two workshops, hosted either regionally or at the Center of Inquiry, will be held to help campus representatives develop plans to work with their colleagues to identify actionable items in their Assessment Portfolios. The first workshop on December 1–3, 2011 will focus on helping institutions identify and prioritize a small number of actionable responses from their Assessment Portfolios. Institutions will most likely act on only a small number of the changes that their assessment evidence suggests. However, the goal of the Wabash Study is to help campuses create a recursive process for using evidence to promote improvements, and items that are not addressed during the study can be revisited in the year or two after the study. The second workshop on March 29–31, 2012 will focus on helping institutions develop assessable action plans that they will implement in fall 2012 in response to their Assessment Portfolios.

Wabash Study Campus Leaders and campus representatives who attend these workshops will work at their campuses to conduct retreats, meetings, workshops, and other activities to help staff, students, and faculty connect assessment findings to courses and/or programs and develop action plans for change.

Wabash Study Campus Leaders continue to communicate with Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Assessment Scholars about the retreats, workshops, and other faculty/staff activities that are taking place at their institutions.

Summer 2012

Institutions continue retreats, workshops, etc., to help faculty and staff translate assessment findings to courses and programs and to develop action plans for change.

Fall 2012 and Spring 2013

Faculty and staff implement changes in their classes and programs based on the assessment findings in order to improve student learning. These changes should be sufficiently targeted so that they can be implemented and assessed during the 2012–13 academic year.

Wabash Study Campus Leaders continue communication with Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Assessment Scholars about changes that are being implemented and the subsequent assessment of these changes.

Institutions assess the impact of course and program changes. Wabash Study Campus Leaders  communicate their findings and send related reports or analyses to Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Assessment Scholars.

Fall 2013

Final meeting of all Wabash Study institutions at the Center of Inquiry to review the changes that made a difference at institutions and to discuss how institutions will continue to gather, evaluate, and use assessment data to improve student learning.

  • Each institution will send a team of three people, including the Wabash Study Campus Leader, to the final meeting.
  • Institutions will share the lessons learned from the project about using data to promote campus change.

Spring 2014

Center of Inquiry staff and Teagle Assessment Scholars will review documents and results of the activities of the Wabash Study in order to generate a report for all institutions highlighting the successes, failures, lessons learned, and possible future activities for the collaborative.