Faculty Handbook

EVALUATION

ICCOC Overview of Evaluation:
The Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC) employs a number of different evaluation strategies. These strategies target all aspects of the consortium to ensure commitment and quality as well as to serve in our efforts for continuous improvement. All ICCOC initiatives are required to measure up to the same standards as traditional courses and programs. In addition, several new online strategies have been implemented because of the importance of quality assurance in this new environment. The strategies are targeted at courses, instructors, and all supporting functions of the ICCOC.

ICCOC Course & Instructor Evaluation:
All ICCOC students have the opportunity to complete an evaluation survey on each course. This survey covers the following categories to assess quality and provide feedback to each instructor and administrator:

Instructor feedback
Instructor effectively facilitated communication
Instructor effectively made use of online nvironment for learning
Course organization and structure
Individual attention
Quality of overall instruction
Establish and define learning goals
Level of intellectual challenge

Evaluation Methods:
End of course student survey, student withdrawal survey

Survey Results Access:
Instructors and Administrators

Evaluation Process:
Evaluation process is consistent with the traditional process at the instructor’s home college. An administrator at the instructor’s home college evaluates each instructor and individual course. Administrators and instructors have continuous access to the evaluations through the consortiums secured Web site. In addition, administrators have the capabilities of accessing the overall results, which can be used to compare individual instructors and courses to the rest of the ICCOC courses.

Student Assessment:
The ICCOC implements strategies to ensure that students are prepared for their online courses and measures outcomes to determine that the learning objectives of each course are met.

Pre-Course Assessment:
Traditional strategies include placement testing to ensure that each student has the appropriate levels of reading, writing, and math to be successful in college level courses. In reference to online courses, the ICCOC provides advisors and students with documents that list the skills needed to be successful in an online environment. Advisors then assess students to determine if they have the characteristics to be successful. The ICCOC informational Web site includes a self-assessment quiz to allow students to determine if they are ready for online courses. The ICCOC also provides an orientation course that helps the student to assess their current skill level and employs strategies to prepare them for their online courses.

Class Assessment:
Each instructor implements class assessment strategies according to their institution’s assessment strategies.
Assessment strategies may include:

Pre-test/Post-test
(For each unit and/or entire course)

Written Assignments

Threaded Discussions

Webliography

Individual Projects

Group Projects

Group Discussion

Exams

Student Portfolios

Research Papers

Student Assessment –Data Analysis:
The ICCOC strategies for student assessment include:

Grade comparison –
online and traditional courses

Retention Rate

Student Success Rate

Student Satisfaction Surveys

Program Evaluation:
The ICCOC continuously evaluates all aspects of the
consortium. All stakeholders and end users are surveyed each semester to identify areas that need improvement.
These strategies cover the following areas.

Student preparedness for online courses

Faculty resources for online teaching

Student services support at college and consortium level

Support documents for online students

eCollege services and support

Student demographics

Marketing strategies

Evaluation Methods:
Pre-course and end of course student surveys,
student withdrawal survey, faculty survey, student services and ICCOC meetings.

Access to Survey Results: All Stakeholders

Evaluation Process:
ICCOC staff collects, summarizes and analyzes surveys and stakeholder input. ICCOC staff and oversight committee identifies quality gaps and communicates information to all stakeholders.
Oversight committee collects input from all evaluations and resources. Then the oversight committee discusses and implements strategies to improve the consortium.

Technology Evaluation:
All ICCOC technology and technical support services are evaluated each semester. The following technologies and services are analyzed through this evaluation process:

Orientation Course

eCollege Learning Management System

ICCOC Web Registration Interface

eCollege help desk

Access to eCollege Network

Evaluation Methods:
End of course student survey, faculty survey, student withdrawal survey, ICCOC meetings and discussions.

Access to Survey Results: All Stakeholders

Evaluation Process:
ICCOC staff summarizes, analyzes and collects input from stakeholders. ICCOC staff and oversight committee identifies quality gaps and communicates information to all stakeholders. Input is collected from all stakeholders and oversight committee discusses and implements strategies to improve consortium. Teleconference meetings are coordinated with eCollege staff to discuss issues related to their services.

Evaluation Instruments:

Pre-Course Survey for Students:

This survey focuses on student demographics, computer literacy, computer equipment, online course experience, and work status.
This survey provides us with student data that is critical to improving services and resources for online students.
The ICCOC Oversight Committee discusses the results and initiates strategies to improve marketing, support documents for online students, and communicate important data to improve student services and functions.

End-of-Course Survey for Students:

This comprehensive survey is facilitated to evaluate and improve all aspects of the consortium.
The survey is distributed to students once a semester.
The data is collected and summarized into report format for each course so that individual courses and instructors can be effectively evaluated.
eCollege provides an overall report that includes the responses of all ICCOC students.
This report focuses on the overall evaluation of the consortium and is utilized to improve each aspect of the consortium.

Instructor Survey:
The Director of the ICCOC distributes a survey to all online instructors once a semester. The results of this survey are utilized to provide the following functions:

Improve student support services

Improve and revise faculty training and resources

Recommendations to eCollege to improve course management system

Recommendations to ICCOC Oversight Committee

Student Withdrawal Survey:
The Director of the ICCOC distributes a survey to all students who have withdrawn from an online course at some point during the semester.

This survey focuses on determining the reasons for students dropping online courses and gives the ICCOC an opportunity to improve on specific aspects of the consortium.
Tt gives the student an opportunity to provide feedback and allows the ICOCC to communicate our intentions of improving the consortium.

ICCOC Evaluation System:
The Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC) works with eCollege to distribute, collect, and analyze two surveys each semester. The following surveys are employed through this partnership:

Pre-Course Survey for Students

End-of-Course Survey for Student

The ICCOC designs the surveys and forwards them to eCollege for distribution.
eCollege provides the following services in reference to the pre-course and end-of- course surveys:

Students are authenticated into a secure evaluation environment with easy access to all surveys.

The eCollege system ensures that students have access to only one pre-course survey. In addition, the system ensures that post-course
surveys are distributed to each student per course.

eCollege ensures that all student responses are anonymous

Administrators and faculty have on-demand access to aggregate and course--level reports and data files after questionnaires are completed.

Administrators are empowered to control access to this information, allowing them to manage this critical aspect of the evaluation process.
The ICCOC also distributes, collects, and analyzes two additional surveys.
These surveys include:

Instructor Survey

Student Withdrawal Survey

The instructor and student withdrawal surveys are distributed by the Director of the ICCOC through e-mail.
It is important to note that all four surveys are a vital
part of evaluating all aspects of the consortium.