ACT
American College Testing located in Iowa City, Iowa. Publishers of the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP) exams and other testing instruments.

Alternative Assessment (Authentic Assessment, Performance Assessment)
A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. An authentic assessment usually includes a task for students to perform and a rubric by which their performance on the task will be evaluated. Authentic assessment is a contrast to traditional educational testing and evaluation, which focuses on reproducing information such as memorized dates, terms, or formulas.

Assessment
The systematic process of determining educational objectives through gathering, using, and analyzing information about student learning outcomes to make decisions about programs, individual student progress, or accountability.

Assessment Method
Technique used to collect data associated with assessment. Methods may include such techniques as: course project, graduate survey, portfolio, external licensing exams, etc.

Authentic Assessment
A form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills. An authentic assessment usually includes a task for students to perform and a rubric by which their performance on the task will be evaluated. Authentic assessment is a contrast to traditional educational testing and evaluation, which focuses on reproducing information such as memorized dates, terms, or formulas.

Benchmark
Expected levels/skills for an educational outcome. A benchmark must be quantifiable, typically stated as a percentage or number.

Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy Six levels arranged in order of increasing complexity or intellectual sophistication:

1. Knowledge: Recalling or remembering information without necessarily understanding it. Includes behaviors such as describing, listing, identifying, and labeling

2. Comprehension: Understanding learned material and includes behaviors such as explaining, discussing, and interpreting.

3. Application: The ability to put ideas and concepts to work in solving problems. It includes behaviors such as demonstrating, showing, and making use of information.

4. Analysis: Breaking down information into its component parts to see interrelationships and ideas. Related behaviors include differentiating, comparing, and categorizing

5. Synthesis: The ability to put parts together to form something original. It involves using creativity to compose or design something new.

6. Evaluation: Judging the value of evidence based on definite criteria. Behaviors related to evaluation include: concluding, criticizing, prioritizing, and recommending.ii (Bloom, 1956)

CAAP
The Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency is the standardized, nationally normed assessment program from ACT that enables postsecondary institutions to measure, evaluate, and enhance the outcomes of their general education programs.

Capstone Courses
Culminating experiences in which students synthesize subject-matter knowledge they have acquired, integrate cross-disciplinary knowledge, and connect theory and application in preparation for entry into a career.

CAT’s
Classroom Assessment Techniques are employed to give instructors information on the prior knowledge and skills of a class and on the class’ understanding of or reaction to a particular session or reading. The most famous of these is the “minute paper,” in which a teacher concludes or punctuates a class by asking students to write down the most important thing they learned that day, the most problematic aspect of a presentation or a brief response to any other topic the teacher chooses. Key features of classroom assessment include: it is universal (every student responds), anonymous and ungraded (so no student fears a penalty), and (like all efficient feedback) it is prompt, permitting the instructor to digest the results and use them immediately or in the next class. Classroom assessment techniques can be used for all sorts of purposes, including, seeking student background knowledge, assessing critical thinking or synthetic skills, gauging student attitudes, reactions, and self-awareness. Some useful CAT’s include:

• Questionnaires that elicit students’ background knowledge of a topic
• Empty outlines, categorizing grids, and “pro and con” grids
• What, How, and Why Outlines to sort out the content, form and function of story or article
• Analytic Memos: short analysis of a reading
• One-sentence (or longer) summaries of a reading
• Invented Dialogues: students select or invent quotations from sources read in class on a particular issue, e.g. Socrates and Aristotle on citizenship
• What’s the Principle? Students read a few problems and state which principle or guiding term studied in the course applies to each

C-BASE
The College Basic Academic Subjects Examination is a standardized test that covers English, mathematics, science, and social studies. Developed in the late 1980s at the Assessment Resource Center at the University of Missouri, C-BASE is a criterion-referenced achievement examination that serves two purposes: to qualify individuals for entry into teacher education programs and to test general academic knowledge and skills in campus-wide assessment programs.

Classroom Assessment Techniques
Techniques employed to give instructors information on the prior knowledge and skills of a class and on the class’ understanding of or reaction to a particular session or reading.

Classroom-Based Assessment
Classroom-based assessment is the formative and summative evaluation of student learning within a single classroom.

Competency
A group of characteristics, native or acquired, which indicate an individual's ability to acquire skills in a given area.

Competency-Based Assessment (Criterion-Referenced Assessment)
Measures an individual's performance against a predetermined standard of acceptable performance. Progress is based on actual performance rather than on how well learners perform in comparison to others; usually still given under classroom conditions. CASAS and BEST are examples of competency-based assessments.

Countable Outcomes (ACLS)
Results that can be quantified; all measures of student outcomes except learning gains, including executive function skills, and affective-related measures. Learning gains are gains in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and numeracy. Executive function skills include problem-solving, critical thinking, and metacognition. Affective-related measures include self-esteem, self confidence, and interpersonal communication.
Examples of Countable Outcomes include: number of people who get jobs, number of people who register to vote, number of people who achieve a GED.

Course Embedded Assessment Techniques
A program assessment method based on an assignment used in a specific course. Examples include:

• Primary Trait Analysis: instructor identifies ideal student achievement on an assignment, unit, course or curriculum, then measures student achievement against it using a single, holistic grade.
• Directed Paraphrasing: students summarize in well-chosen (own) words a key idea presented during the class period or the one just past.
• Muddiest Point: students write one or two ideas that were least clear to them from the current or preceding class period.
• Minute Paper: students identify the most significant (useful, meaningful, disturbing, etc.) things they learned during a particular session.
• Characteristic Features: students summarize in matrix form those traits that help define a topic and differentiate it from others; useful for determining whether students separate items or ideas that are easily confused.
• Transfer and Apply: students write down concepts learned from the class in one column; in another column provide an application of each concept.
• RSQC2: in two minutes, students recall and list in rank order the most important ideas from a previous day's class; in two more minutes, they summarize those points in a single sentence, then write one major question they want answered, then identify a thread or theme to connect this material to the course's major goal.

Curriculum-Embedded or Learning-Embedded Assessment
Assessment that occurs simultaneously with learning, such as projects, portfolios and exhibitions. Occurs in the classroom setting, and, if properly designed, students should not be able to tell whether they are being taught or assessed. Tasks or tests are developed from the curriculum or instructional materials.

Direct Assessment
Direct measures of student learning require student to display their knowledge and skills as they respond to the instrument itself. Objective tests, essays, presentations, and classroom assignments all meet this criterion.

Direct Assessment Tools
Direct assessment tools and strategies include: portfolios, licensure exams, internships, and other measures of student learning.

E-Portfolios
E-Portfolio provides students with the ability to electronically store collections of their intellectual work, thus enabling them to document their intellectual growth and development from entry to graduation and beyond. The goal of the e-Portfolio project is to deepen learning and empower students by providing them visible evidence of their learning and illuminating a pathway toward educational and career goals.

Portfolio www.osportfolio.org
The Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) is a community of individuals and organizations collaborating on the development of the leading non-proprietary, open source electronic portfolio software available. Formed in January 2003, the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) is a collaborative, open-source, software development project based on the University of Minnesota Enterprise System's electronic portfolio software. The University of Minnesota (U of MN), University of Delaware, and the r-smart group, founded this collaborative to open the evolution of the U of MN e-Portfolio to diverse input, rapid development, and widespread use.

ETS
Educational Testing Services is a nonprofit organization that offers testing and assessment services and products.

Faculty Assessment Day
OCC annual event that brings faculty from across the college together to engage in authentic assessment of student learning. On Faculty Assessment Day, participants use faculty-developed rubrics to assess students’ knowledge and skills within the context of each General Education Outcome.

Formative Assessment
Assessment that provides feedback to the teacher for the purpose of improving instruction. An assessment which is used for improvement (individual or program level) rather than for making final decisions or for accountability.

General Education Outcomes
The Oakland Community College General Education distribution courses and other campus experiences lead to the development of the following:

•  Aesthetic Awareness: Graduates will have an appreciation of the role of aesthetic expression in daily life
• Communicate Effectively: Graduates can demonstrate and apply skills for effective written and oral  (including non-verbal) communication.
• Critical Thinking: Graduates can demonstrate and apply the skills to conceptualize, think creatively and innovatively, analyze, synthesize, and apply information.
• Global Understanding and Responsibility: Graduates understand global issues and the potential impact of their decisions on other individuals, groups and the environment. Graduates can identify opportunities and articulate personal intentions to improve global conditions.
• Information Literacy: Graduates will be able to use information ethically and legally, and identify, explore, analyze and apply appropriate information resources to a specific task.
• Personal Development: Graduates understand personal development as a life-long process. Graduates can demonstrate strategies for physical and psychosocial well being, as well as personal responsibility for decisions and behaviors.
• Quantitative Literacy: Graduates can perform mathematical computations, identify and draw inferences from relevant information, and represent mathematical information graphically, symbolically, numerically, and verbally.
• Scientific Literacy: Graduates can apply fundamental scientific principles and methods of inquiry to understand the impacts of scientific research and technology.
• Social Responsibility: Graduates understand the rights, responsibilities, and privileges necessary to become informed participating community members.
  

Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
Higher education accrediting arm of the North Central Association.

Holistic Scoring
Evaluating student work in which the score is based on an overall impression of student performance rather than multiple dimensions of performance (analytic scoring).

Indirect Assessment
Indirect assessment asks students to reflect on their learning rather than to demonstrate it. Techniques include external reviewers, student surveys, exit interviews, alumni surveys, employer surveys, and curriculum and syllabus analysis.

Indirect Assessment Tools
Indirect assessment tools and strategies include external reviewers, student surveys, exit interviews, alumni surveys, employer surveys, and curriculum and syllabus analysis.

Learning Outcome (Educational Outcome)
A Learning Outcome is a statement of what a student should understand and be able to do as a result of what he or she has learned in a course or program. A Learning Outcome reflects specific knowledge, skills and abilities a student is expected to achieve. Learning outcomes describe the learning mastered in behavioral terms at specific levels. In other words, what the learner will be able to do.

OAE
Office of Assessment and Effectiveness

PDTC
Professional Development and Training Center

Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the art and science of how something is taught and how students learn it. Pedagogy includes how the teaching occurs, the approach to teaching and learning, the way the content is delivered and what the students learn as a result of the process. In some cases pedagogy is applied to children and andragogy to adults; but pedagogy is commonly used in reference to any aspect of teaching and learning in any classroom .

Portfolios
A systematic and organized collection of a student’s work that exhibits to others the direct evidence of a student's efforts, achievements, and progress over a period of time. Examples include:

• Showcase: Student only puts best example or best product in for each objective.
• Cumulative: Student places all work relevant to each objective into the portfolio.
• Process: Student places pre/post-samples of work for each objective into the portfolio.

Portfolio Assessment
A portfolio is a collection of work, usually drawn from students' classroom work. A portfolio becomes a Portfolio Assessment when (1) the assessment purpose is defined; (2) criteria or methods are made clear for determining what is put into the portfolio, by whom, and when; and (3) criteria for assessing either the collection or individual pieces of work are identified and used to make judgments about performance. Portfolios can be designed to assess student progress, effort, and/or achievement, and encourage students to reflect on their learning.

Program Assessment
Evaluation of determined student learning outcomes that informs changes in pedagogy and curriculum to increase student success.

Qualitative Data
Data collected as descriptive information, such as a narrative or portfolio. These data often collected in open-ended questions, feedback surveys, or summary reports, are more difficult to compare, reproduce, and generalize. It is bulky to store and to report, however, it is often extremely valuable and insightful data, often providing potential solutions or modifications in the form of feedback .

Quantitative Data
Data collected as numerical or statistical values. These data use actual numbers (scores, rates, etc) to express quantities of a variable. Qualitative data, such as opinions, can be displayed as numerical data by using Likert scaled responses which assign a numerical value to each response (e.g. 4 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree). This data is easy to store and manage; it can be generalized and reproduced, but has limited value due to the rigidity of the responses and must be carefully constructed to be valid.

Rating Scales
Values given to student performance. Subjective assessments are made on predetermined criteria for documenting where learners fall on a continuum of proficiency. Rating scales include numerical scales or descriptive scales.

Reliability
The measure of consistency for an assessment instrument. The instrument should yield similar results over time with similar populations in similar circumstances.

Rubric
A rubric is a scoring and instruction tool used to assess student performance using a task-specific range or set of criteria. To measure student performance against this pre-determined set of criteria, a rubric contains the essential criteria for the task and levels of performance (i.e., from poor to excellent) for each criterion.

SAGE
Student Assessment of General Education

SOAC
Student Outcomes Assessment Committee. A standing committee of the college Academic Senate at Oakland Community College.

Standardized Assessment
Assessments created, tested, validated, and usually sold by an educational testing company e.g. GRE’s, SAT, ACT, ACCUPLACER for broad public usage and data comparison, usually scored normatively.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)
Student learning outcomes are the specific measurable goals and results that are expected subsequent to a learning experience. These outcomes may involve knowledge (cognitive), skills (behavioral), or attitudes (affective) that provide evidence that learning has occurred as a result of a specified course, program activity, or process. A Student Learning Outcome refers to an overarching goal for a course, program, degree or certificate.

Summative Assessment
A culminating assessment, which gives information on students' mastery of content, knowledge, or skills. The gathering of information at the conclusion of a course, program, or undergraduate career to improve learning or to meet accountability demands.

Validity
The extent to which an assessment measures what it is supposed to measure and the extent to which inferences and actions made on the basis of test scores are appropriate and accurate.