Conducting a Program Review Part Three: Collect and Review Evidence
Now that a team for conducting the program review has been assembled and educated, begin identifying and examining the evidence to be used to inform the self-assessment. Documentation for each of the Council for Advance of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) components must be collected to support any evaluative judgments.
While it is good practice for programs to routinely file information related to program effectiveness, much of the documentation might not be gathered centrally for the self-study team to utilize immediately at the start of the program review process, so it is likely that the team will need to begin by identifying and collecting the supporting documents. When gathering information to be reviewed as evidence, consider program documents, administrative and institutional documents, marketing materials, assessment results, and activity reports.
Examples include:
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Mission and vision statements
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Policy and procedure manuals
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Purpose and learning outcomes information
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Annual reports and summaries of assessment and evaluation results
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Program brochures, marketing materials, and agendas
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Organizational charts, position descriptions, and staff profiles
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Institutional data and student profile information
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Participation, usage, financial, and other operational data
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Previous self-study reports
Having a variety of evidence available to the team will assist them in evaluating the wide range of expectations defined in the CAS standard being used, and multiple forms of evidence will add to the validity of the end product. Likewise, because no review is complete without data and documentation to support the team’s judgments, it is potential through this process that additional research or assessment will need to be initiated for the self-study, such as student surveys or focus groups.
Once materials are collected and organized, the program review team shall then review the materials to ensure an in-depth familiarity with the area being studied and how it relates to the components of the CAS standard.
In the next issue, the process for conducting and interpreting ratings of the evidence for the evaluation will be described.
ACUI members have the access to relevant functional area standards at www.acui.org/resources/cas.
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