Program Assessment Plan

Park University's Information and Computer Science Department is committed to the ongoing assessment and enhancement of its curriculum to promote student learning. This Program Assessment Plan is used to measure student competence in defined areas as well as provide an assessment of reaching course goals and overall program effectiveness.

Departmental Degrees Background Information:

Park's Information and Computer Science Department has four degrees in:
1) Information and Computer Science (ICS)
2) Computer Science
3) Computer-Based Information Systems
4) Management/Computer Information Systems.
The ICS degree is offered in the Parkville daytime format exclusively. It is an umbrella degree with specialty areas that include the content of the other three degrees. We hope to eventually merge the other three degrees into the ICS degree, but due to idiosyncratic general education differences in Parkville daytime degrees and campus center degrees, they must remain separate for the time being.

With the ICS degree being an umbrella degree with five specialty areas, three of the ICS degree's specialty areas correspond to the other three degrees. With this correspondence, there are common program competencies for some of the specialty areas and degrees. For example, the ICS/Computer Science and Software Engineering specialty areas correspond to the Computer Science degree, and they share the same program competencies. Also, the ICS Systems Analysis specialty area corresponds to the Computer-Based Information Systems degree and the Management/Computer Information Systems degree, and they share the same program competencies.

Program Mission:

Prepare students for a broad range of computer opportunities in industry as well as in graduate studies.

Academic Goals:

ICS/CS, ICS/SE and CS Students:

1. Will have skills necessary for entry-level employment in software engineering and IT analyst positions.
2. Will have the necessary knowledge to be admitted to Computer Science graduate school programs.

ICS/SA, M/CIS and CBIS Students:

1. Will have skills necessary for entry-level employment in systems analysis positions.
2. Will have the necessary knowledge to be admitted to Information Systems graduate school programs.

ICS/NT Students:

1. Will have skills necessary for entry-level employment in networking and security positions.
2. Will have the necessary knowledge to be admitted to graduate school programs with a networking and security emphasis.

ICS/DM Students:

1. Will have skills necessary for entry-level employment in data management positions.
2. Will have the necessary knowledge to be admitted to graduate school programs with a data management emphasis.

Program Competencies:

1. Apply problem-solving and critical-thinking skills and use popular computer technologies in producing technology solutions.
2. Communicate effectively, ethically, and professionally in a team environment.
3. ICS/CS, ICS/SE, and CS students: Design and implement elegant programs that utilize data structures and operating systems concepts.
4. ICS/SA, M/CIS, and CBIS students: Identify appropriate information technologies for a given organizational context and explain how to incorporate such technologies into the given organizational context.
5. ICS/NT students: Explain computer networking and security concepts and demonstrate proficiency in use of popular computer networking and security technologies.
6. ICS/DM students: Design and Implement elegant data management solutions.

Program Competency Measurement Tools:

The Information and Computer Science Department will use three different tools to assess program competency learning. The primary tool is a comprehensive exam. The secondary tools are the core assessment for CS 300 and an exit survey.

Comprehensive Exam

The ICS Department will create and maintain the comprehensive exam. It will test mastery of concepts, principles, and knowledge expected of students at the conclusion of the various specialty areas and majors within the ICS Department. In addition to factual knowledge, the exam will test students' abilities to analyze and solve problems, understand relationships, and interpret material.

The comprehensive exam will group questions into specific areas:

1. The core area questions measure the first program competency (apply problem-solving and critical-thinking skills and use popular computer technologies in producing technology solutions).
2. The computer science area questions measure the ICS/CS, ICS/SE, CS program competency.
3. The systems analysis area questions measure the ICS/SA, M/CIS, CBIS program competency.
4. The networking area questions measure the ICS/NT program competency.
5. The data management area questions measure the ICS/DM program competency.

All of Park's computer students will be graded on the core area questions. Additionally, ICS/CS, ICS/SE, and CS students will be graded on the computer science area questions. ICS/SA, M/CIS, and CBIS students will be graded on the systems analysis area questions. ICS/NT students will be graded on the networking area questions. And ICS/DM students will be graded on the data management questions.

All computer students will be required to take the comprehensive exam some time during the last two weeks of the last term prior to graduation.

With approximately 2400 computer majors, the Department estimates 600 comprehensive exams will be given each year. In trying to ensure feasibility, the following process has been discussed with the Registrar's graduation officer and with Park's eCollege facilitator:

1. The exam should be entered into the Park system as a non-credit course that all computer students have to sign up for during their last term.
2. To help students remember to sign up, when they apply for graduation, the Park system will show the exam as a requirement for graduation.
3. When the student enrolls in the exam course, eCompanion will automatically load the exam (and the exit survey) into the student?s parkonline.org Web site.
4. The exam will be visible for just a limited period during the term ? the last two weeks. Having the student take the exam just prior to graduation is important in case they happen to be taking one of the courses whose content is tested in the exam.
5. The exam will consist of multiple-choice questions that will be graded automatically by the eCompanion tool.
6. The exam will use ?Exam Guard.? It locks down the student?s computer completely while the student takes the exam. That means that the student cannot look for answers on the Internet or on the hard drive or any other drive, and the students cannot make a copy of the exam either. Currently, all online students pay an additional $3 for their courses to pay for Exam Guard. Using Exam Guard for the comprehensive exam should be less expensive than using Exam Guard for an entire online course.
   Possible solutions:
   1. Students pay an additional $1 as part of their application for graduation fee
   2. Park changes their agreement with eCollege so that Exam Guard is turned on for all courses and then no individual fees would be required.

Comprehensive Exam During the Second Year:

Starting with the second year, the ICS Department would like to add questions to the comprehensive exam, so that exams are generated with randomly chosen questions from a pool of questions. Park University's eCompanion tool already provides such random-question functionality.

Starting with the second year, the ICS Department would like the comprehensive exam to be proctored. This would help to prevent cheating. The Department estimates that it would cost $4000 to have a proctor at every campus center for every term: 40 centers x 5 terms x $10/hr x 2 hrs = $4000. The cost could be shared by all departments with comprehensive exams.

Starting with the second year, the ICS Department would like to add a notation to graduates' transcripts that indicates "honors" for those students with a high GPA and a high comprehensive exam score.

Currently, several departments (for example, Business Administration, English) require their students to pass a standalone comprehensive exam with a minimum cutoff score prior to graduation. Requiring a minimum cutoff score would help to ensure that students put forth a reasonable effort. The ICS Department realizes that requiring a minimum cutoff score brings up logistical issues (and possible legal issues as well). That's why the Department is not using a minimum cutoff score during the first year. But the Department would like to do something along those lines starting with the second year.

Secondary Measurement Tools

The Communicate effectively, ethically, and professionally in a team environment? program competency will be assessed in the CS 300 core assessment. See the CS 300 core assessment artifact and scoring rubric for details.

As part of CS 300, during the last quarter of the course's term, computer students will be required to fill out and submit an exit survey. The survey will ask students to describe their plans for job prospects and/or graduate school. It will also ask students to describe how well they learned the program competencies that apply to their major. Additionally, it will ask students for contact information so that the Department can track their progress in terms of jobs and/or graduate school.

Evaluation of Competencies:

The following table shows how the measurement tools will be evaluated relative to the Department's program competencies.

Annually, the ICS Department will compile the results from the comprehensive exam and the CS 300 core assessment and analyze the results. These results will give the department direct measurements of the mastery of specific skills and knowledge. In addition, there will also be an exit survey of graduating seniors as an indirect measure of the program to assess quality control. If the Department finds trends that indicate a deficiency in a particular mode of learning (e.g., online), then the Department will consider possible remedies (e.g., try 16-week instead of 8-week formats). If the Department finds trends that indicate a deficiency in a particular program competency area (e.g., problem solving), then the Department will consider possible remedies (e.g., adding more problem-solving to courses).

Review of Materials

Program review will occur annually and will be reported as according to the University Assessment Committee guidelines.