Colleges are quick to post certain kinds of data on their Web sites, such as the number of admission applications received, the SAT scores of incoming freshmen, and favorable rankings by U.S. News & World Report.
The same isn’t true of more meaningful numbers, however. A report released on Tuesday by the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment found that most colleges don’t fully reveal what they do to assess learning outcomes on their campuses. The report was based on a national study of the information published online by 725 two- and four-year institutions.
“Institutions have more student-learning-outcomes assessment activities under way than they report on their Web sites,” write the report’s authors. They note that descriptions of those activities don’t appear on many admission home pages—the very portals designed for consumers.
The report concludes that colleges must make information about learning outcomes more transparent—not to mention understandable—to prospective students and their parents. Among the authors’ recommendations: Colleges should publish information about learning outcomes, including examples and resources, on various parts of their Web sites, and update such information regularly; explain the results of such assessments in plain terms; and make the information easier to navigate.
Colleges wouldn’t want families to base admission decisions solely on superficial perceptions of institutional prestige, now would they?
4 Responses to What’s on Your Web Site?
formerprof05 - July 14, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Many institutions, I sadly presume, might simply provide a link to tables of raw data in order to obfuscate. After all, how many prospective students or families possess the ability to understand or interpret such data? But making the data available seemingly innoculates an institution against charges that it has something to hide.Perhaps a better, more helpful approach would be for an institution to describe the benefits that such assessment reveals for students who attend the institution, and to do so in language that is clear and understandable to most people. If learning outcomes are poor, the institution then has a opportunity (obligation?) to explain how such challenges are being addressed. If outcomes are good, so much the better!Assessment should drive improvement. So long as that is truly happening, why should institutions keep such information under wraps?
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