Assessment Process

The Process

1. When you have an idea for a project, contact Student Affairs Planning, Assessment & Research as soon as possible to set up an appointment to discuss your project and complete the Assessment Questions form. We will ask you some questions to understand your purpose and the scope of the assessment. We ask that clients allow four weeks for the survey development after the initial meeting: much of that time is working with you to ensure the questions will provide you with useful information. Please review our SurveyQuestionConsiderations and Tips on Writing Good Survey Questions documents for assistance in designing questions. We encourage you to share any support materials that can help us understand your program or services.  This could include mission statements, goals, brochures, existing evaluations and results, schedule of events, etc.
2. During the meeting, we review the process with you to ensure we understand the assessment project you have in mind.  As part of the discussion, we will review the options of how to accomplish the project and together we will design an implementation plan.
3. If you are doing a web-based survey with a random sample or a specific group, we can help you set that up. We like for you to draft the email cover letter and any reminders. Please review Good Practices in Writing Invitations revised
4. When all of the data has been collected, we will analyze the information for you and generate a report according to the needs you have indicated. Keep in mind that the data analysis and report writing may take up to four weeks. If you are interested in writing your own report, see our report template that you can adapt for your own needs.
5. We will contact you to schedule a meeting once the report has been completed to review the outcomes and recommendations with you.

Important Information

1. Because we are funded through University Advancement Fees, our staff services are free to student organizations and Division of Student Affairs departments.  However, if there are costs associated with your assessment project (i.e., copies, transcriptions, etc.), your organization will be required to fund them.
2. Depending on your assessment needs, it takes varying times to complete projects.  Please allocate enough time to ensure that all aspects of the project can be accomplished.  We encourage you to plan for four weeks between your initial idea and the implementation of the project.  Following data collection, we may need approximately 3-4 weeks to analyze the data and write a report for you.