Evaluation and Assessment

Improving Learning at UCR

Institutional-Level Assessment Overview 

Assessment at the institutional level is a collaborative process that is about understanding UCR as a whole. Annually, the Office of Evaluation and Assessment collaboratively guides the following process with the Assessment Advisory Committee:

  • Collects data from across the campus.
  • Analyzes the findings of the assessment
  • Produces a report to be shared with UCR Leadership

While much of the assessment process at the institutional level mirrors that of program-level assessment, there are some slight differences. At the program level, the entire process exists at the program-level from data collection to reflection and next steps. At the institutional level, the work is done collaboratively through a distributed process where the organization, implementation, analysis, and reporting are done at the institutional level, but the scoring occurs at the course level. Then sharing and next steps are done collaboratively with leadership from across the campus.

At the institutional level, we assess the following Core Competencies:

  • Critical Thinking
  • Information Literacy
  • Quantitative Reasoning
  • Written Communication
  • Oral Communication

For answers to common questions about UCR's institutional-level assessment of WASC Core Competencies, click on the following Institutional-Level Assessment FAQs

 

Institutional-Level Assessment Steps

More details on each step can be found below the diagram.

Institutional-level assessment diagram
    • The timeline for assessing the Institutional-level assessment timeline of each Core Competency was established in 2019 through the Assessment Advisory Committee.
    • Please refer to the General Core Competency Assessment Timeline for information on when each Competency will be assessed.  We currently finished the assessment of Written Communication in 2025-26.

  • In the past, evidenced gathering followed a juried assessment process. We have shifted over to distributed assessment process that is as follows for evidence gathering:

    • Each quarter, an email will be sent out to all faculty teaching courses relevant to the Core Competency being assessed that year with instructions on:
      • How to setup CANVAS for their participation
      • How to score their students
    • The Director of Evaluation and Assessment will reach out to members of the UCR community for indirect data to inform the assessment.
    • All scores submitted by faculty are obtained by the Director of Evaluation and Assessment from CANVAS.
    • The data is sent to IR for merging with student demographic data and uploading into the Core Competency Dashboard
    • The Office of Evaluation and Assessment will analyze the direct and indirect data collected from the assessment.
    • The findings from the analyses will be compiled in a report.
    • The draft report will be shared with the Committee on Educational Policy and Assessment Advisory Committee for feedback and recommendations.
    • The final report is shared with UCR leadership for discussion and support for next steps.
    • The Director of Evaluation and Assessment will work with the UCR community to implement and follow up on next steps.