Purpose & Goals

The University of North Texas (UNT) requires all academic and administrative units on campus to participate in institutional effectiveness (IE) reporting which is used for accreditation. It is meant to show that the University is focused on continually improving student and administrative outcomes through data-informed decisions. However, this process can be difficult to understand and can seem daunting because of the multi-year commitment. The UNT Libraries struggled with getting individuals new to assessment to participate in the IE process, and we worried we were not taking advantage of the opportunity to promote the value of our work. Our goal was to make it easier for individuals new to assessment and the IE process to participate, and we hoped it would also help them gain confidence in their assessment skills.

Design & Methodology

Making the Institutional Effectiveness process more approachable started with teaching ourselves about the IE process because we were also new to it. We then focused on simplifying the documentation provided by our university, and we created some supplemental documentation to fill gaps we identified. We then distilled the reporting requirements as much as we could, and we created worksheets for each step that required reporting information to the university. We also strategically recruited groups in the Libraries that were doing work that would easily accommodate basic assessment workflows, and we worked closely with them to outline their assessment processes.
Findings    The results were a clear success. The groups that participated had very little trouble understanding the IE process, and they were excited to be able to add multi-year assessment processes to their projects. We also received recognition from the University about our work, and we were excited to be able to share our achievements with a wider audience.

Action & Impact

The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive, and we are even in the process of adapting the tools and documentation to other workflows within the Libraries. This has also helped grow our culture of assessment which we’ve been working on for a few years.

Practical Implications & Value

We believe this process could be valuable for other libraries that are looking to implement continual improvement assessment processes or are having trouble getting participation in institutional assessment reporting.