The Technology of Assessment: Societal Impact, Sustainability and More

Kent Seaver, Director of Academic Operations, Naveen Jindal School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas

Assessment in higher education has been embedded in courses, programs, and student success for decades. Its importance can be seen in the tracking of student degree completion, the creation and revision of student learning outcomes, and the overall success of an academic program. At the program level, assessment has come to imply aggregating individual measures for the purpose of discovering group strengths and weaknesses that can guide improvement actions. Technology’s role in this process is vital and evolving with the changing needs of students and society.

Once embedded only in classic instructional methods of the classroom, higher education assessment can now be found in co-curricular activities, alumni panels, and career-based educational activities. While these are great improvements, not all institutions are collecting and using real action-related data that can affect funding, curriculum, or career planning changes. In higher education, we want to strive for improvement, and this can be aided by improving the assessment process itself. In relation to these processes is where technology can and does play a crucial role. The emphasis on societal impact and how curriculum (and graduates) positively impacts the needs of an ever-changing society have driven institutions like the University of Texas at Dallas’ Jindal School of Management (JSOM) to create a template to capture and measure what is being done at the program-level to better the society it impacts.

For many years, JSOM has used a standard template to capture assessment data related to course and student-level outcomes. These measures can be either direct (measures of student learning such as embedded exam questions that show specific learning has taken place) or indirect, meaning that learning has taken place but do not specifically prove that learning or skill. Examples of the latter method include data gained through an exit survey or alumni questionnaire. This assessment template has allowed all our graduate and undergraduate programs to not only document their program and student outcomes, but track and make necessary changes to improve student learning. While the emphasis on this outcome tracking and measurement was historically on direct measures, recent changes in accreditation standards as well as societal shifts have caused a change to document all ways our programs impact student learning.

“Our graduate and undergraduate programs were already contributing to the creation of a stronger society both in and outside of the classroom but needed a better technological method to document and track the data.”

Beginning this past academic year, all graduate and undergraduate programs in the Jindal School began using a modified electronic template for capturing assessment data that stresses not only societal impact strategies, but how those strategies capture diversity and equity initiatives as well as external examples of lifelong learning. The creation of this template modification was needed by JSOM to illustrate what we already knew but needed to document. That being: our graduate and undergraduate programs were already contributing to the creation of a stronger society both in and outside of the classroom but needed a better technological method to document and track the data. This added template, modeled after the 2020 Standards set forth by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), allows all programs to describe the specific activity or focus area used in or outside the classroom by entering data into specific columns. This data is then compiled and aggregated by the Academic Operations Team.

The initial area where the new template allows for better documentation is found in how the assessment activity is used or related to a particular course. Specifically, the template allows for documenting the Program Student Learning Outcome or Course Student Learning Outcome that highlights the specific impact. Next, in direct relation to Standard One of the AACSB guidelines mentioned above, the program will explain how the measure proves a ‘positive commitment to societal impact and how it relates to the focused mission and specifics for achievement.’ For example, our Entrepreneurship 4340 Social; Sector Entrepreneurship and Community Engagement course created a “Business for Good” initiative, which partnered JSOM with the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and various volunteer groups to use business skills to address social and environment problems. In a comparable manner, the next area allows the academic program to document how the activity or action is related to the curriculum; how the program’s elements ‘promote a positive societal impact in instruction’ (AACSB Standard Four). One example where we met this standard was in International Management Sciences 6365 (Cross Cultural Communication), where students were taught how to explain why multinational firms’ activities related to child labor practices in foreign markets are unethical and as a result, unsustainable. Standard Eight of the AACSB guidelines relates to the ‘Outcomes Related to Scholarship’ and allows programs to document their specific portfolio of intellectual contributions (books, articles, academic conference presentations, etc.) that focus on ‘research that has a positive societal impact related to the school’s mission.’ The last addition to the template concerns AACSB Standard Nine: Outcomes Related to Internal and External Initiatives and Activities. By adding this to our electronic assessment template, we can capture how the program or program-sponsored student organization “demonstrates positive societal impact through both internal and external initiatives.” A notable example of this can be seen in this past Spring’s Kijani Ecoware Sustainable Supply Chain Case competition. Sponsored by the undergraduate Supply Chain Management Program in JSOM, this competition created a deeper understanding of supply chain management by inviting students to solve problems related to various supply chain-related topics such as food, healthcare, and transportation.

While assessment has always been a strong factor in educational decision-making within JSOM, diversity and equity initiatives, societal impact, and sustainability have led us to develop specific courses aimed at creating student understanding of the world’s needs. These needs have always been there, but now educational institutions are realizing and charting data related to those issues. The process to be completely successful in meeting societal needs is a marathon and not a spring, but the technological efforts of JSOM in capturing and analyzing this data is allowing the race to become one which can be won. 

Supply Chain

Healthcare