Assessment Plan Guidelines

The University Assessment Committee has adopted the following guidelines for academic programs, advising centers, and co-curricular programs at GVSU. UAC expects units to provide updated reporting annually in GVAssess on 2+ SLOs/SCOs identified by the program for assessment each year.

• Academic programs: Each academic major or degree program should have its own assessment plan consisting of 2+ SLOs.
  • These are outcomes are common to all students who graduate with a given major. 
  • Units are encouraged to consider incorporating the University SLOs into their assessment plans where it makes sense to do so. 
• Emphases: Each emphasis area should have its own unique SLO in the assessment plan for the major.
  • These are outcomes uniquely associated with the emphasis and are to be assessed separately from the core SLOs for the major.
• Certificates: Each certificate should have an assessment plan with at least 2 SLOs.
  • These are outcomes common to all who complete the certificate.
• Stand-alone minors: These are minors that do not have a major associated with them. Stand-alone minors should have an assessment plan with at least 2 SLOs.
  • These are outcomes common to all who complete the stand-alone minor.
• Stand-alone badges: These are badges that are comprised of courses that are specific to the badge. Students not seeking the badge would not typically, or are not eligible, to take these courses are part of a major, minor, certificate, or as electives. The courses in these badges would not be assessed as part of other programs. Each stand-alone badge should have an assessment plan with at least 2 SLOs.
  • Badges do not need to be assessed as separate entities so long as the courses used in them are not specific to the badge. For example, if the courses making up a badge can also be used in a major or certificate, the badge does not need to be assessed as a separate entity. If a badge is made of courses that are used ONLY for that badge, then the badge must be assessed like a major or a certificate (2 SLO/SCOs).
  • These are outcomes common to all who complete the stand-alone badge.
• Student Affairs
  • Student Affairs assessment includes both advising and co-curricular programs. Academic advising units typically identify 2 or more SCOs that measure learning and development resulting from advising-related activities and services. 
  • Similarly, co-curricular units – such as University Libraries, the Meijer Writing Center, Campus Recreation, etc. – offer programs that complement academic learning and are expected to maintain 2 or more SCOs or SLOs. Both advising and co-curricular units report annually in GVAssess on all established outcomes.

Each academic, advising, and co-curricular program at GVSU has an assessment plan that outlines the process of systematically collecting and analyzing data to evaluate the program's impact on the desired student outcomes. This page describes the current and ongoing expectations for student outcomes assessment at GVSU. 

Expectations vary by program type.