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Lessons Learned from ACE Certification, Summer 2008

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The following information was gathered over the summer as the Interim ACE Committee met to certify course proposals. The issues addressed may help faculty as they create proposals and expedite the certification process.

A complete ACE Course Proposal will include:

  1. A representative syllabus attached to the proposal that clearly identifies a) which Student Learning Outcome (SLO) is satisfied by the course, b) a brief description of the opportunities the course provides for students to acquire the knowledge or skills necessary to achieve the Learning Outcome(s), and c) a brief description of the graded assignments that the instructor(s) will use to assess the students' achievement of the Outcome(s). Including the SLO in the syllabus will help students understand how taking this course provides them with learning opportunities.
  2. Letters of support from other departments with which the course is cross-listed (if applicable).
  3. A completed application form with at least one outcome and one reinforcement selected and explained (courseapproval.unl.edu).

The online ACE certification request form requires that proposers respond to three questions:

  1. Describe opportunities students should have to learn the outcome.
    How is the learning objective embedded in the course?
  2. Describe student work that will be used to assess student achievement of the outcome and explain how the students demonstrate the knowledge and skills specified by the outcome.
  3. As part of the ACE certification process, the department/unit agrees to collect and assess a reasonable sample of students' work and provide reflections on students' achievement of the Learning Outcomes for its respective ACE-certified courses. Please comment on your plans to develop a process to collect and evaluate student work over time for the purpose of assessing student success for this ACE outcome.

In addition to the Guidelines for Review of ACE Course Certification Requests (http://ace.unl.edu/ACEguidelines.shtml), the IACE committee asks submitters to consider the following when preparing a proposal for ACE course certification:

The Proposal: Responses to questions 1-3

  1. At times, a course submitter's response to the first or second question (when viewed separately) does not clearly provide all of the information necessary for the committee to certify the course; however, in some of these proposals, when the two responses are read together, the committee understands that the proposal meets the requirements of the outcome and the spirit of the program. The IACE committee commits to looking at the responses to questions 1 and 2 together (and they try to give each course proposal a generous interpretation so as not to require any more work on the part of those proposing courses than necessary).
  2. The response to question 2 should not simply list the tools that will be used for assessment (such as "quizzes and tests"). A list such as this does not explain how the tools will be used to help students achieve the proposed outcome. In mid-June the wording of the second question was appended with the phrase "…and explain how the students demonstrate the knowledge and skills specified by the outcome" to clarify what information should be included in this response.
  3. A response to question 3 (about assessment) should include more than a statement saying that work will be collected. The committee asks that proposals also include an indication that something will be done with the data.

The Proposal: Reinforcements

  1. ACE courses are required to reinforce at least one skill. The purpose of the reinforcements is to ensure that the program is developmental. Students do not master an outcome by taking one course. This builds in a practice and application aspect to the outcome.
  2. The reinforcement is not supposed to be the same as the outcome for which the course is being proposed. An exception to this is when a course is proposed for outcome 2, which consists of 4 components (Demonstrate communication competence in one or more of the following ways: (a) by making oral presentations with supporting materials, (b) by leading and participating in problem-solving teams, (c) by employing a repertoire of communication skills for developing and maintaining profession and personal relationships, or (d) by creating and interpreting visual information). Because the course does not have to address every component of the outcome, it is possible for the course to be proposed for (as an example) the visual literacy portion of the outcome and be reinforced by oral communication (which is technically a part of the same outcome but a separate skill area).
  3. Those proposing courses for inclusion in ACE should be intentional about identifying the skills reinforced in a course. The number of reinforcements included in the proposal is not a determinant in the committee’s decision, and there should be evidence in the proposal and accompanying syllabus how each skill is reinforced.

The Proposal: Components of outcomes

  1. When proposing a course for SLO 2, the submitter needs to identify which component(s) of communication competence the course fulfills.
  2. The submitter should pay attention to the "ands" and "ors" in some of the outcomes. The IACE committee checks to make sure all aspects of the outcome are being addressed.
  3. A course proposal for outcome 10 (Generate a creative or scholarly product that requires broad knowledge, appropriate technical proficiency, information collection, synthesis, interpretation, presentation, and reflection) needs to clearly identify the product students create. The application should answer these questions: Why is it important for students to generate the product? How is it appropriate to the discipline? It should demonstrate some advancement or application of scholarship or creative activity, and not just recycle existing scholarship.

The Proposal: Important to keep in mind

  1. Proposals should avoid jargon specific to the discipline; instead the proposal’s language should be directed toward a general audience.
  2. While the attached syllabus is helpful to familiarize the committee with the course being proposed, it does not substitute for the information required on the proposal form. The proposal should stand on its own and make the case for the course’s certification.
  3. Information about graduate students’ work should not be included in the ACE course proposal, as the ACE program focuses solely on undergraduate work.
  4. Overall, the committee members are not making judgments regarding courses, course content, academic disciplines, instructors, units, etc.; rather, they are solely evaluating the effectiveness with which the proposal demonstrates that students have the opportunity to gain and demonstrate the knowledge and/or skills specified in the outcome, and that the unit has indicated a reasonable strategy for assessment including "collecting" and "doing".
  5. The IACE committee asks that faculty members work with their course facilitators to make sure a course is being submitted for the appropriate outcome.
  6. The Interim ACE Committee has defined several decision levels: Certified, Resubmit Fast-Track (for proposals needing minor changes—once resubmitted, these proposals will come back to the IACE Committee directly), Resubmit (for more major changes—once resubmitted, these proposals will travel up the full college curriculum approval chain), Not Certified (for courses that do not meet the outcome for which they were proposed—these proposals might be submitted under a different outcome or withdrawn by the submitter).

The Course Approval System (courseapproval.unl.edu)

  1. With the new version uploaded, processing time has been reduced to just seconds. Because this was such a major overhaul in the programming, a few bugs were discovered and have been corrected. Please report any other system bugs or problems to Kelly Dick.
  2. Automated e-mails have begun. For more about this see: ACE Frequently Asked Question #20.
  3. The "Comments" tab in the system allows you to attach public notes to a specific course request. Type your note, then click "Add Comment". This tool is useful for creating a record of changes requested by the IACE committee and/or made by the submitter. *Remember: A comment is public, remains a permanent part of the submission, and is tagged with the user name of whoever wrote it. Comments should always sound professional and neutral. (The "Private Comments" tab retains notes that only the writer of the note can see.)
  4. The method for attaching documents (such as syllabi and cross-list letters) has been altered slightly to make attaching multiple documents easier and more intuitive.

The ACE web site (ace.unl.edu)

  1. Annotated examples of certified courses can currently be found on the ACE web site at http://ace.unl.edu/coursesub.shtml.
  2. In our efforts to be transparent to our audiences including students, faculty, those at community colleges, etc., all complete and certified ACE proposals are available at http://ace.unl.edu/certifiedcourses.shtml.
    • The ACE web site also offers:
      • Frequently Asked Questions:http://ace.unl.edu/ACEfaq.shtml
      • Faculty Resources which include:
        • Guide for Developing an ACE Course for Certification
        • ACE Certification Guidelines
        • ACE Certification Working Form
        • Incentive Request Form
        • And other helpful information