The Office of Assessment collects student work samples from your course’s Essential Assignment(s) to measure student achievement of the Category Specific Learning Outcomes (CSLO) across the university.
Key facts about the Core Education Assessment Process:
- Every Core Education course must have an identified Essential Assignment for each CSLO. The same assignment can be used to assess all or multiple CSLOs.
- Instructors should be sure that the appropriate Core Ed category learning outcomes are linked to their Essential Assignment in Canvas. The Office of Assessment will collect student work from all category-designated courses.
- Instructors with Essential Assignments that are submitted outside of Canvas should contact the Office of Assessment directly.
- Office of Assessment staff will collect, process, and anonymize the student work to make individual student identification difficult or impossible.
- OSU Faculty Assessment Fellows, a group of faculty with expertise in the relevant category, will score the student work using category-specific assessment rubrics. *If you are interested in serving as a Faculty Assessment Fellow please complete the application form
Data Collection Schedule for 5-Year Assessment Cycle
| Data Collection Year | Core Ed Categories |
|---|---|
| Year 0 (2025-26) |
Arts & Humanities - General Arts & Humanities - Global DPO Foundations DPO Advanced Transitions |
| Year 1 (2026-27) |
Social Science Quantitative Literacy & Analysis |
| Year 2 (2027-28) |
Scientific Inquiry & Analysis Seeking Solutions |
| Year 3 (2028-29) |
Writing Foundations Writing Elevation |
| Year 4 (2029-30) |
WIC Communication, Media, & Society Beyond OSU I: Prepare Beyond OSU II: Engage |
Use of Core Ed Assessment Data
- Category assessment results will be reported at the institutional level to document OSU students' achievement of the Core Ed learning outcomes.
- Assessment results will aggregated by category and will retain no connection to the individual students, instructors, or courses from which the data were collected.
- The results of Core Ed assessment will not be used to certify/decertify any course.
- Assessment results will be reviewed by the Faculty Senate Core Education Committee, and will eventually be available to the entire OSU community.
What Are Essential Assignments?
Essential assignments:
• Help students make meaning of their work by connecting individual, course, and Core Ed learning outcomes.
• Prompt students to identify meaningful learning experiences throughout their Core Ed courses, reinforcing what is relevant and useful to transfer to their major courses and beyond.
• Help instructors communicate their learning outcomes to students and fellow instructors to further engagement around quality teaching and learning.
All Core Education courses will include at least one assignment that directly measures each stated category specific learning outcome. These assignments are integral to the course, providing meaningful and authentic assessments of how well students are achieving all required learning outcomes. Each course can use one to three assignments to assess all required outcomes, with seven types of Essential Assignments that can be used for this purpose.
The Seven Essential Assignment Types
A selection of student work, which in their totality, address at least one learning outcome
A speech or talk in which a new product, idea, or piece of work is shown and explained to an audience
A written work of specified length on a topic, in one of several forms, e.g., research paper, position paper, essay, article, story, poem, script, libretto, lab report, etc.
A planned undertaking, usually in the form of a response to a task or problem engaged in by students
A written statement arising from serious thought or consideration given to the examination and/or exploration of how the writer has changed, developed, or grown from experience or interaction with some subject matter, idea, or purpose
Usually scored using an interval scale that provides a number of points earned as the measure of achievement
A literary (e.g., story, poem, play, libretto, essay, critique), artistic work (music, dance, drama, visual art, media), or practical skill (scientific lab) presented or exhibited to the public on stage, screen, or in a physical or digital space
Requirements for Creating Essential Assignments
The specific assignment instructions and details can be different across sections, but all sections use the same type of assignment.
- The essential assignment is a major form of assessment for the learning outcome.
- It counts toward the final course grade.
- All students are required to complete the assignment.
- It is a culminating assessment, conducted after the learning outcome has been taught (and not a pre-test or early formative assignment).
- Completed student work for the essential assignment is a single submission for the overall assessment of the category.
- The essential assignment doesn’t have to be the only assignment in the course that assesses the learning outcome, but it’s the only assignment that will be submitted for category assessment.
Category-Specific Learning Outcomes Assessment
Assessing learning outcomes in Core Education provides a valuable opportunity to measure, document, and highlight student achievement across all majors and programs. The Office of Assessment facilitates this effort by collecting student work samples from all Core-Ed approved courses.
Your participation in this process is essential to enhancing the overall quality of Core Education and maintaining OSU's NWCCU accreditation, which supports continued access to university funding and student financial aid.
What Do Faculty Need to Do?
You will need to add the appropriate Category-Specific Learning Outcomes to your course and link these outcomes to your Essential Assignment(s) in Canvas. Aligning the CSLOs to your EA lets the Assessment team know where to find student work samples for Core Education category assessment.
- Create your Essential Assignment in Canvas
- Follow the step-by-step instructions and/or watch a video walkthrough on the Faculty Resources for Core Education page to add the appropriate Core Education category outcomes to your course, then add the outcomes to a new or existing rubric in Canvas (you do not need to use the rubric for grading). This process takes approximately 10-15 minutes.
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Be sure that each CSLO for your category is attached to an Essential Assignment.
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Each CSLO should be linked to only one assignment. You may designate a single Essential Assignment to assess all CSLOs or use a different EA for each CSLO.
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If you need tech support with this process, please reach out to the OSU Canvas Support Team at canvas@oregonstate.edu.
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For questions about the Core Education category assessment process, contact Nancy Barbour at [email protected].