Here is a summary of frequently-asked questions by faculty, and answers from the Instructional SLO Facilitator (iSLOF), pertaining to SLOs and their assessment.
These are current as of September 25, 2012, and reflects agreements reached in the SLO Assessment Committee (SLOAC).
Note that some of these answers are subject to change as the assessment process goes forward and we continually improve it.
rs are subject to change as the program review process goes forward and we continually improve it.
For the convenience of faculty, WebSLOs 2.0 is available on our public website.
Only outcome statements and assessment status are available, however, with details and assessment results residing on the protected "U drive", which is accessible off-campus over the "WebVPN".
There are forms for updating status and submitting assessment results -- these are password-protected, using a scheme that authenticates users through their DVC email.
"Logging in" is done by "email authentication".
Since WebSLOs 2.0 uses email authentication instead of a new set of passwords, it's called "authentication" instead of "logging in".
You don't have to worry about authenticating until you have changes to submit.
At that time you'll see an authentication form appear automatically.
Use your @dvc.edu email address to authenticate yourself using the form.
Assessment commitments are made by the departments once per academic year.
These are usually decided during August FLEX activities and department meetings
Departments can enter and edit their selections using the Annual Schedule online form.
Here are the 2012/13 guidelines for department to follow in selecting non-topics and non-experimental courses for assessment during an academic year.
At least 30% of all courses offered in a department must be assessed in an academic year.
A course's first assessment must be completed according to the WebSLOs 5-year calendar.
Courses are to be assessed a minimum of once every three years after the first assessment, as possible per the schedule of classes.
The number of sections to include in a course's assessment, and the outcomes to assess are to be decided by the department.
We don't use eSLOs anymore -- it's replaced by WebSLOs in 2010.
The WebSLOs home page has a link for submitting assessment results for course and program assessment results.
The results of course assessments done in any academic year are to be submitted by the end of the following fall semester.
While it's possible so submit fall and spring (and summer) assessments separately, it's recommended that all assessments for an academic year be considered together.
An academic year's program assessment results are to be submitted by the end of the spring semester.
Version 1.0 used the old eSLOs database to store outcome statements and assessment history.
The computer that housed eSLOs was retired in 2010, and its data transferred to one that is maintained by the iSLOF.
As a result, faculty no longer have the option to bypass the WebSLOs form for entering assessment results by using eSLOs instead.
This is the major structural difference between the two versions.
A more visible change is that we no longer refer to the "date in which action plans were implemented", which caused confusion with the semester for which assessments were performed.
The new version refers only to the academic years in which assessments were performed, without also keeping track of the individual semesters or when action plans were to be implemented.
