Oklahoma State University engaged 90% of academic programs in more effective assessment practices with Nuventive and Microsoft Azure

Assessment is crucial for universities that want to improve practices and better serve students. OSU understands the importance of gathering and analyzing assessment data. Faculty and staff previously found this process challenging because they operate in a decentralized system that, while beneficial to students, led to occasional disconnect among faculty and across programs. The university recognized a need for more robust and feature-rich technology to combine data from different colleges, departments, and programs and use it for actionable insights.

In 2017, OSU joined forces with Nuventive, a data-informed improvement software company and a Microsoft higher education technology partner, to deliver a cloud-based solution that provides faculty and staff with a clearer picture of assessment data and options for using that data for improvement.

Managing data for hundreds of program assessments

OSU is a land-grant university that offers educational programs ranging from aerospace to agriculture to social sciences. The university serves more than 25,000 students, with 87 majors and hundreds of minors and graduate degree programs. Like many higher education institutions, OSU sought to provide the best services to students, but the lack of guidance and feedback, as well as manual assessment processes, made it difficult for faculty and staff to find actionable insights.

“Before 2017, everyone was pretty much doing their own thing,” says Dr. Ryan Chung, Assistant Vice Provost for Accreditation, Assessment, and Testing at OSU. “There was no proper recordkeeping method or follow-up process, and most assessment coordinators felt that expectations were unclear and that access to assessment information was limited once it was turned in. Ultimately, this process created a culture of doing the bare minimum in terms of assessing student learning.” In many situations, this minimized coordinators’ confidence to create meaningful initiatives for continuous improvement.

To collect data from so many faculty and staff in one location, Chung and other OSU leaders decided to seek support from Nuventive to implement a solution.

Creating a centralized solution on Nuventive in just eight months

In 2017, Chung, who had recently joined OSU, began working toward a connection with Nuventive. Chung had used Nuventive at another institution and knew that it provided an unparalleled solution for universities seeking to modernize assessment and planning. “I knew that Nuventive would listen to what the customer really wants,” says Chung. “The Nuventive system makes it possible to customize instead of us having to modify our processes to fit the system. The team listens to our concerns and helps us cross every single obstacle.”

Within just eight months, OSU created a new process for assessment and data collection with Nuventive. A senior consultant from Nuventive implemented the design using existing data sources and technologies. Built on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform and integrated with Microsoft Power BI, this solution delivers engaging and clear data visualizations in the Nuventive Improvement Platform. “Now, if the dean wants a snapshot of the college programs and their review quality, learning outcomes, and findings, one simple click of a button will provide an infographic with that information,” says Chung.

With a central location and easy-to-use dashboards, university faculty and assessment staff can see collected data, create custom reports, and design visualizations to help interpret information. The solution provides OSU with university-wide templates and consistent workflows to enhance collaboration among program staff and faculty. It also offers a scalable infrastructure that will support the university as programs evolve and student numbers expand.

Improving student learning outcomes and engaging 90% of academic programs

With this new system in place and 90% of OSU’s academic programs engaged in the assessment process and active on the Nuventive platform, the assessment process is more open and collaborative. “Everyone is fully informed through emails and our community support group,” says Dr. Kelva Hunger, Associate Director of Assessment and Analysis at OSU. “We can provide quick, thoughtful, thorough, and comprehensive feedback through a review process, using Nuventive as a critical tool to communicate that information.” 

Using the centralized interface in the Nuventive Improvement Platform, faculty and staff can more easily access assessment outcomes to understand what’s working and not working among the students and programs. “We’ve created some longitudinal charts with Nuventive,” says Kaitlynn Holcomb, Assessment Coordinator at OSU. “For example, assessment coordinators input how many students they assessed for each student learning outcome and how many were successful and can now see the changes in scores and know when it’s time to update things.” 

In one instance, a program in OSU’s engineering college realized after assessment that many students lacked strength in soft skills, such as communication. With detailed assessment data as guiding evidence, the program faculty designed a new core course to help students develop these skills within the engineering context. Since then, assessment scores have shown that students in this program have consistently improved their communication skills. 

Now, with past data archived securely in the cloud, faculty, staff, and new program assessment coordinators have easier access to the information they need to develop better enhancements and understand student needs. Since the Nuventive solution was deployed, OSU students have improved scores in student learning outcome assessments and maintained success rates averaging 90%.

Moving toward creating better action plans for university academic programs

OSU intends to continue using Nuventive and Microsoft technology to improve student learning. “Our next move is to make sure each program has time to digest the information it has gathered, discuss its needs among faculty, and create an action plan that aligns the goals of the program with the OSU mission,” says Chung. “With clearer data and action plans, OSU is continuing to help all students achieve better learning outcomes and go on to make an impact on the world.” 

“The academic programs have the freedom to do what they think is best for students—with us there to support them,” says Chung. “We want to help the programs create their own voice so that they can share their unique attributes and show how that impacts students for the better.”