January 2009 Archives

Over break, I read an article in The Chronicle (about a company called College Prowler) that was caught creating (and administrating) Class of 2013 groups at hundreds of colleges and universities.

Brad Ward on Squared Peg wrote about this too (he is an admissions person at Butler U., and is is the one who uncovered it) noting that with admin rights to each group, the company had easy access to 1,000,000+ college students.  As Brad said in the article, "That's huge."

Admissions officials are now creating their own "Official" 'Class of' pages for their incoming students, noting that this is one of the institutional growing pains presented by students' adoption of social networking sites.

Colleges and universities absolutely need to get more involved in creating an official presence within Facebook and elsewhere.  It honestly shouldn't have taken this long (or for something like this) to happen. 

I've spent the last three summers convening with my student interns, figuring out new ways of marketing the Libraries' Open House on Facebook.  We've created a mascot who really, is only on Facebook.  We created that mascot solely so that we could have a benign (read: not an over 30 person) presence in some of those 'Class of..' student groups.  We create a Facebook event (and a page) for the Open House each year.  We've tried Facebook ads (moderately successful)  We all (including the mascot) invite as many friends as we possibly can to the event.  That's about as far as it goes.  Just thinking about all of it makes my head hurt.

Inevitably, each year, I am stymied by the fact that as a member of a student "Class of..." group, I still can't invite all of the members of that group to an event.  Unless I am a group admin (I think.)  Aha!  Now, you too see the genius, or at least sheer boldness, of CollegeProwler's marketing scheme.  If there was a way that we could invite, via Facebook, the entire freshman class at Penn State University Park to the Open House, the Open House would perhaps have an even bigger attendance.

If Universities create official 'Class of..." and other groups, this may at least help University-affiliated organizations and events gain some leverage within the Facebook environment.   While I'm not advocating for barraging users with marketing strategies and ads (even if it is for something educationally useful), I'd like to see some advantages extended to University-affiliated groups on social networking sites.  Is it time to begin creating custom environments (by school / by company / by geographic area) for Facebook users?  Should the realm of student apps, like course schedules, the registrar, the Libraries, etc.. lay on top of and reside with Facebook social data?  We've talked about doing this with the Facebook library app (for book recommendations), and it also holds unlimited promise for marketing.  An article about iStanford, the iPhone app for Stanford students, noted:

If you could create the de facto campus app for all those schools, giving college students information they need while connecting them with one other, you could create a far more useful, mobile version of Facebook. Add on an advertising network -- what college student wouldn't opt in to something that gave them free pizza coupons? -- and pretty soon you've got a colossal moneymaker.

  Could the social graph of Facebook offer up a data-rich backbone for accessing (and promoting) University services and events?  I'll keep waiting for it to happen.

Barbara Wiens-Tuers, Penn State Altoona
Wants to see assessment done right for faculty and students.  Important: travel to conferences and other places to see what assessment looks like and how it can be implemented on a large campus.
Have a teaching / learning consortium, book discussion group, informal discussions on assessment.  Have an ad-hoc assessment committee formed on their campus last spring.  Formed by a group of faculty.  Driving principle was keep it simple.  Questions can be basic starting out.
Mentioned IUPUI Assessment conference and visting Alverno--a school that has done assessment well.

Alan Graefe, Recreation, Parks, Tourism Management
Have eight core courses required in the major.  Are looking at objectives and converting them to learning outcomes.  Delineating approaches to measuring outcomes.  Used student surveys to determine whether course outcomes were achieved.
 
James Howell, Veterinary Sciences
Sees assessment as a means for enabling curriculum updates, developing lab courses, advising training and support for faculty advisors; building a more deliberate effort to integrate undergraduate research; evaluating placement--are students getting jobs; strengthening the first year experience; strengthening the educational experience for transfer students from other Penn State campuses.

Discussed a blog project he conducted with his classes.  Students blogged about concepts they didn't understand.   Blog entries contained much food for thought.  The class blog James referenced is located here:  http://www.personal.psu.edu/jeh37/blogs/james_endres_howell/

Lisa Lenze, Director of Learning Initiatives, College of IST
Her background is in education.  College has not collected much data yet.  Stressing review of curriculum rather than course.   Are planning to use Angel for assessment; communicating broadly throughout the college; keep modifying the assessment plan based on what faculty say they need to make this real.  She stressed the need to overcome the belief that faculty cannot agree.  Have had retreats and other structured activities focused on assessment and evaluating student work.  Stressed 'triangulation'--looking at other sources of assessment, such as the NSSE, first year student surveys, senior exit surveys, student satisfaction surveys, and course projects and exams.  This spring, IST will begin their first effort to collect assessment data.

Bill Lasher, Behrend College
Outlined the assessment structure in place.  External measures (exams, survey) connected to 10 outcomes, which are informed by student feedback and faculty evaluation.  Insights from the process:  External measures and student opinion are easy to collect.  Evaluation of student work by faculty requires organization (automated reminders to faculty) and training; Are faculty explicitly teaching to the outcome?  Assessment must involve the entire university.  Are students gaining essential learning outcomes in courses outside of the college (ex., written / oral communication)

Lolita Paff, Penn State Berks
Shared a timeline for Berks Business program assessment.  2002:  Mapped courses by content area; developed a mission statement.  2004:  Administration developed a mission statement; 2007:  Revisited course mapping. 2008: Want AACSB accreditation; mission statement revised by faculty; course objectives standardized across sections of business core courses; Future plans: Developing an implementation plan; collect direct assessment data; Identify 2-3 objectives to be assessed; Evaluate results.  Showed an example of their learning outcomes grid.

I'm at the Penn State Assessment conference today, From Here to Implementation:Putting Your Assessment Plan to Work.

Notes from Keynote by Karen Paulson of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

What can an accrediting committee expect from a University in terms of assessment?
--Documentation of student learning
--Complilation of evidence of student learning (curricular and co-curricular)
--Stakeholder involvement
--Capacity building--Importance and assessment of student learning outcomes is valued as educational improvement.

Showed Huba and Freed--Design Backward ----  Deliver Forward chart.  A model for how learning outcomes flow down through the University into course design and articulated learning outcomes for specific class lessons.

Recommended Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment by Barbara Fassler.

Learning Outcomes:
--Help design and structure courses and curricula
--Reduces "redundancy, omission and irrelevancy"
--Leads to collaboration, cooperation, and more

Have you used assessment...
--To change your courses / to adapt assignments ' to adapt curricula?  Document your findings for accreditation purposes.

What to do with assessment:
--Use results to start discussions, not 'give answers'
--Emphasize fixing problems--not creating "winners and losers"