Academic Affairs Assessment in the Major

James Madison University has had a long tradition of providing assessment in the majors. Even prior to the legislative mandate for all public four-year institutions to assess the majors, JMU was actively engaged. JMU also elected to include all graduate programs in their assessment activities. All programs at JMU are expected to collect data at least annually on their graduating students and to report their assessment findings as an integral component of their annual reports. Every academic program is scheduled to meet with the external APR teams to report on each program's assessment progress. CARS also administers the annual alumni survey for undergraduate programs.

Every undergraduate and graduate program at JMU has a designated Assessment Coordinator, and a staff liaison from Center for Assessment and Research Studies. These two people work with the department to design and develop assessment in every academic major. Some academic programs use the Spring Assessment Day to administer assessments; others embed assessment activities in department courses. Many diverse strategies and assessment prompts are used at JMU. Locally developed, regional, and national comprehensive exams; on-line information-literacy/library skills assessments; portfolio assessment; performance assessments; essay/term paper review; oral comprehensive exams; external on-site supervisor ratings; exit interviews, surveys and focus groups. In order to ensure that assessment instruments fit learning outcomes in the major, 90% are locally designed. The University reviews academic programs on a five-year cycle. The program review schedule can be found at: http://www.jmu.edu/jmuplans/pr_sch.shtml