Fall 2025 assessment: Schedule and New Step
Assessment this fall will contain the usual elements, with two important updates:
- Syllabus collection (via new method to minimize faculty steps)
- Applies to all courses meeting a General Education requirement. (See the Bulletin page for an overview of Gen Ed and the specific categories and components and approved courses.)
- New: “Drift check” for subset of Gen Ed courses
- This semester, applies only to faculty teaching courses in Computer Literacy, Visual Literacy, Health & Wellness, Global Cultures, and Diversity in U.S. Society.
- Rubric collection at end of semester for same subset of Gen Ed courses
- This semester, applies only to faculty teaching courses in Computer Literacy, Visual Literacy, Health & Wellness, Global Cultures, and Diversity in U.S. Society.
- Discussions/workshops for subset of courses for which rubrics were collected during the previous semester.
- This semester, applies to instructors teaching Quantitative Reasoning, Oral Communication, Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, and Financial Literacy (or who taught such a course in spring 2025).
More information on each of these steps
Step 1: Syllabus collection (for all General Education courses).
Please keep in mind:
- The syllabus for each course must include the specific Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs, found here on the Gen Ed blog) developed for that requirement.
- For instance, if you are teaching a Common Core / Natural World course, your syllabus must include the SLOs developed for the Natural World courses.
- To minimize faculty steps, this fall we will experiment with collecting the public-facing syllabi that are already on your Canvas page (per the new Indiana law).
- However, if the syllabus you are posting on Canvas contains minimal information, please submit a separate and more complete document to directge@iu.edu.
Steps 2 and 3: Drift Check (new) and rubric submission for roughly one-third of Gen Ed courses (this fall, only those meeting Computer Literacy, Visual Literacy, Health & Wellness, Global Cultures, and Diversity in U.S. Society).
- Beginning of semester: Drift Check. This is an assessment step to ensure that courses already approved to meet a specific General Education requirement, in some cases many years ago, are still meeting the Gen Ed SLOs in meaningful ways. Instructors will receive an email request with link to a Qualtrics survey for this check.
- End of semester: Rubric collection. Instructors will complete and submit one assessment rubric for each class; the Director of Gen Ed will contact you with a reminder during the semester and again in Week 14. It can be a good idea to review these rubrics early in the semester and as you plan/teach your class. Each link below is for viewing or downloading the corresponding Rubric worksheet in .XSLX format. If you’d like more information on the rubrics, see below.
Below are links to the Excel sheets for the courses being assessed with rubrics this semester:
Step 4: Course-specific discussions. The Director of General Education will invite instructors now or recently teaching courses meeting Quantitative Reasoning, Oral Communication, Critical Thinking, Information Literacy, or Financial Literacy to join a component-specific discussion during the fall. We will discuss rubrics submitted in Spring 2025 and common issues and challenges specific to the courses you teach. Stay tuned for a calendar invitation.
Please reach out with any questions to Jake Mattox, Director of General Education, at jdmattox@iu.edu or directge@iu.edu.
More information on the assessment rubrics to be collected at the end of the semester:
- Students are assessed for each SLO on the following scale, as indicated on the Rubric Worksheets:
- 0 (Does Not Meet);
- 1 (Introductory Level);
- 2 (Practicing);
- or 3 (Mastery).
- Student names should not be included on the Rubric Worksheets — just the number of students that fall under each Assessment Level for each SLO.
- For example, in a class of 30, for one specific SLO, the instructor might indicate that there are 5 students in the “Does Not Meet” category, 10 at the “Introductory Level,” 9 at the “Practicing” level, and 6 at the “Mastery” level — for a total of 30 students.
- It is up to each instructor to decide how to assess the SLOs; some faculty use one signature assignment that is designed to meet and measure all SLOs, whereas others use multiple assignments for this purpose.
- Instructors should clearly indicate the Number Assessed (number of students who have completed the course) on the worksheet. Students who have withdrawn or have an FN in the course should not be included, but those who have completed the course, even if they did not pass, should be included.