How do I plan course-embedded assessments in Insights?

Plan > Assessment Plan

While faculty committees and teams are essential for planning curriculum and assessments, its Coordinators (both Assessment and Program Coordinators) have the capability to plan course-embedded assessments in Insights and deploy them to Canvas.

Faculty are able to edit and publish the assignments in Canvas that are created from a deployed assessment plan from Insights.  Then, as assignments are scored, faculty can view the outcome results related to the assessment plans that impact their course(s) on their Insights dashboard.

This article will review the following elements of creating course-embedded assessment plans in Insights:

1. Create a course-embedded assessment plan in Insights.
2. Deploy a course-embedded assessment plan to Canvas.
3. Understand the status of course-embedded assessment plans.

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Creating a Course-Embedded Assessment Plan

To create a course-embedded assessment plan in Insights, go to Plan > Assessments >
+ Create Assessment Plan. (If there are existing Assessment Plans in progress, they will be listed on screen.)

In the modal window Plan Assessments, click the dropdown in the Cycle field to select a cycle for this assessment plan (reminder: cycles are created in Setup > Assessment > Cycles & Goals--article link referenced above) and then click the blue button to + Add Assessment.

 

In the modal window Add Assessment, complete the fields according to the steps listed below:

1. Type of Measure: select Canvas Assessment because this will be an assessment where an assignment is embedded into the Canvas course.
   1. Unless you intend to use student's Canvas assignment submissions in Juried Assessment, do not activate the Collect Submissions for Juried Assessment toggle. Instructions specific to Canvas Assessment with support for Juried Assessment can be found here.
2. Assignment Description: (optional) describe the purpose of the assignment (e.g., "This assignment measures ILO 1"). This helps faculty determine how best to structure the assignment when they see the assignment shell in their course(s).
3. Collect results for: check the button if this assessment is for Program or Institutional Assessment. 
4. Programs and/or Learning Outcome Type:
   1. if Program Assessment was selected in Step 3, click the Programs dropdown to choose the Program (more than one program may be selected); and choose the Learning Outcome Type: ILO or PLO.
   2. if Institutional Assessment was selected in Step 3 (Program is not applicable) and ILO (for Institutional Learning Outcome) auto populates in the Learning Outcome Type dropdown.
5. For Mastery of: Category and/or Learning Outcome: select an outcome category (optional) to filter the selection options that will appear in the Learning Outcome dropdown. Select the Learning Outcome you want the deployed assignment to measure. You many choose multiple Learning Outcomes. Selecting multiple outcomes will limit the courses assessed in Canvas to those that are curriculum mapped to ALL of the selected outcomes.
6. Assess CLOs Mapped to Selected Outcomes or Assess Selected Outcomes Directly:
   1. if you want to assess CLOs and how they perform against PLOs/ILOs (based on the Learning Outcome you selected in number 4 above), choose Assess CLOs Mapped to Selected Outcomes. This will allow for course-specific (CLO) rubrics to be used during assessment, and it will produce data results on both CLOs and PLOs/ILOs they are associated with.
   2. If you instead want to assess at a higher level (on just PLOs/ILOs as determined in number 4 above), choose Assess Selected Outcomes Directly. This will populate a standard rubric in every course included in the assessment plan, and it will produce data results on just the PLOs/ILOs identified in the assessment plan. NOTE: you will select the Rating Scale in Step 15 below.
7. Collection Terms: click the dropdown to select the desired term(s) for collection of data.
8. Goal: select a goal to be assessed (these were added to the cycle when it was created from Setup > Assessment > Cycles & Goals).
9. Objective: select an objective from the dropdown (optional).
10. Departments: select the department codes which contain courses that you would like to target with this assessment; more than one code can be added here.
11. Course Levels: select the course levels that you would like to target with this assessment.
12. Assignment Type: choose the suggested assignment type that should ideally be used by faculty to complete this assessment.
13. Canvas Submission Type: select the method of assignment submission (i.e. text entry, file upload, etc.) in Canvas.
14. Course Preview: Click to expand the view to see courses that will be included in this assessment plan based on analysis of your Curriculum Map relative to the Learning Outcomes, Academic Department and Course Level selections above.
15. Select Rating Scale: choose the rating scale for this assessment to align with; (This is only visible and required if you opted to Assess Selected Outcomes Directly in step 6 above.)

When done, click Add Assessment.

 

In the modal window for Plan Assessments, the Plan details will be displayed. Click the blue button Create New Plan and the plan will then be listed on screen under Plan Assessments.

You MUST click Create New Plan in order for your assessments to be retained. Subsequent editing of the plan will not require recreating the plan.

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Deploy Assessment Plan to Canvas

Once assessments are planned, Coordinators can view the plan details on the Plan Assessments. 

1. Click the right chevron (>) icon to expand the assessment plan specifics and view the current status.
2. Click the pencil icon to edit/view plan details.
3. Click the Trash icon to delete the assessment plan.
4. Click the up arrow icon to deploy the assessment to Canvas.

When an assessment is deployed to Canvas, a shell for the outcome assignment, including suggested assignment type indicated in the plan, will be created inside the Canvas courses that were indicated in the plan.

Example: If the assessment plan is for "Level 1" courses, assignment shells are created in Canvas for only those Level 1 courses that are mapped. (i.e: an assignment that captures learning outcomes data specifically for English 110 is desired; so in the curriculum map English 110 must be aligned to an Program/Institutional Learning Outcome. In the Assessment Plan, if English is the program selected and Course Levels = Level 1, an assignment will be created for English 110 and any other English, Level 1 courses that are mapped).

Assignment shells that are created in corresponding Canvas courses are intentionally created as unpublished to allow faculty to build/edit the assignment title and details, and then can publish the assignment once prepared.

Faculty hold the autonomy to edit and teach the assignment, while coordinators are assured they are proactively gathering learning outcome data through the assignment(s). 

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Status of Assessment Plans

Coordinators can view the status of the assessment plan at any time. The following status' define assessment plan activity:

Planned: The Assessment Plan has been initially planned with specific criteria. No plan assignments exist for this course offering in Canvas until deployed.

Deployed: The Assessment Plan has been deployed to Canvas, creating corresponding assignments as outlined in the plan's criteria.

Progress: Once an assignment is scored, it is officially in progress gathering data. Note: Once this status occurs, the existing Assessment Plan cannot be edited. If there is need to edit, a coordinator must delete the existing plan and create a new one.  

Completed: The courses included in the Assessment Plan, relative to the term, are scored and the data collection is completed for this stage of the plan (not shown above). 

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