Achievement Area

An Achievement Area is the name eLumen™ uses for a set of related student learning outcomes. This allows related SLOs to be grouped together for reporting and other purposes. Each of these areas is “owned” by a committee, department, or program who defines the outcomes and their rubrics. Typically, each major educational objective, goal area or “core competency” has its own Achievement Area.

The “owners” of Achievement Areas can pull up reports for the results of all assessments that have used their defined outcomes and rubrics.

Assessment

A student activity that has been linked to a student learning outcome and a rubric. Types of assessments include:

Planned Assessment: A student activity created at the course-section level that has been linked to one or more student learning outcomes and rubrics.

Shared Assessment: Two kinds

• A required student activity, linked to one or more student learning outcomes and rubrics.
• A recommended student activity, linked to one or more student learning outcomes, rubrics and recommended catalog courses.

Catalog Courses

A course as described in the courage catalog and approved by a curriculum committee; may have course outlines and prescribed student learning outcomes.

Course Sections

A course section is a specific section of a specific course, taught in a specific academic term, by a specific instructor.

General Expectation/Specific Expectations

(See Student Learning Outcome below.)

Magnitude Scale

(See Rubric below.)

Owner/Organizational Entity

Most of the information in eLumen—Achievement Areas, Rubrics, Shared Assessments, and actual assessment data—is “owned” by a specific part of the organization. This can be a department, a committee, or something else. Academic departments are automatically created in eLumen when data is imported from the institution’s student-and-course information system. Additional owners can be created within eLumen as needed. “Owner” and “organizational entity” are synonyms for these organizational units.

Rubric

A rubric is a generic or descriptive scale for evaluating student activity. An eLumen rubric can have between 1 and 13 scale levels. Two attributes of rubrics are used to specify any defined student learning outcome:

Magnitude: Describing how large the student effort was (e.g., a one-time performance, an end-of course/program achievement)

Standard of evidence: Defining how much weight can be attributed to this judgment of student performance (for example, “Occurred outside the college and reported by the student” in contrast to “Occurred within the college and evaluated by an authorized person using a rating-scale rubric.”)

Specific Expectation

(See Student Learning Outcome below.)

Standard of Evidence

(See Rubric above.)

Student Learning Outcome (SLO)

An SLO, or student learning outcome, is a description of a student achievement that can be demonstrated by students and evaluated with a rubric.

Student learning outcomes can be either a General Expectation or Specific Expectation. After you create an Achievement Area—a name for a group of related student learning outcomes—you can add SLOs as a General Expectation and, optionally, create Specific Expectations for that SLO.

A General Expectation can be a generic description of a Student Learning Outcome (SLO) that a student could conceivably complete in different student activities, courses, or even outside of the classroom. An example of a General Expectation might be “Write a documented research paper using academic sources.”

Specific Expectations define more specific performance criteria within a General Expectation.

For example, for a General Achievement on writing, Specific Expectations might include: “Write for a specific audience,“ “Provide a clear, focused thesis,“ or “Write in formal edited English.“

Specific Expectations are especially useful if each has its own criteria for assessment.