Institutional Assessment

SPRING 2026

1. All program learning outcomes and their assessment measures have been programmed in Watermark. Lead faculty have been assigned to each program area who have the responsibility of updating assessment plans and entering assessment reporting information.  Each of those faculty have been provided an Assessment Reporting Handbook and training on how to complete and submit annual reports. To simplify reporting, over 50% of the assessment lead faculty have opted into Watermark automated data collection from Canvas.
2. Beginning July 1, 2026 the annual reporting cycle will be from July 1 - June 30.  No assessment reporting will be due November 1, 2026 as we transition to a new assessment timeframe. Faculty can collect data and report on Program and course learning outcome achievement anytime during the assessment cycle. We highly encourage faculty to collect data in the fall semester, then collaborate with faculty to analyze the data, determine actions for improvement, and then complete reports on learning outcomes in the spring semester prior to faculty going off contract in May.
3. This spring we will be asking programs to complete or update their 6-year assessment plans to include which courses will be evaluated and reported each year.  We will use the assessment plans to program those courses in Watermark each year with the course SLOs and assessment measures. We recommend programs evaluate and report 2-3 courses in the discipline each year.
4. The office will work this spring with the lead faculty to set up mapping of course and program learning outcomes to institutional learning outcomes (ILO) in Watermark.
5. We encourage faculty to participate in the Faculty Senate Assessment Committee ILO Assessment Project. To learn more and participate in the project, click on ILO Assessment Project in the next accordion below.

At CSN, assessment of student learning occurs at the course, program major, and institution levels.

CSN has implemented unit planning for all executive, institutional support, student support, academic support, and academic units (Schools and Departments). Unit planning components consist of a unit mission, SMART goals, strategies, effectiveness measures, and action items. Unit planning is updated annually and modified as necessary, based on assessment evidence from the previous academic year. The planning and reporting timeline below should be followed with an annual reporting due date of November 1 for data collected the previous fiscal year.

Annually the CSN president in conjunction with the Office of Institutional Assessment and Accreditation conducts an informal review of unit plans using "show-n-tell" (SNT) presentations from each unit plan manager. The synergistic experience allows collaboration within and across units to communicate priorities and partnership opportunities. As CSN evolves in our unit plan process, we are working on a formal unit plan review every six years, to retrospectively evaluate the effectiveness, adequacy, and efficiency of unit goals and our process.

All unit plans are published for college-wide viewing in the Unit Planning segment below.