Staff

Assessment of Staff Activities that Support Student Learning at UNO

The most important task of an institution of higher learning is to ensure that students learn. Student learning, then, is the responsibility of all members of the institution: staff, faculty, and administrators. While the daily work activities of many staff are not directly associated with student learning, all staff activities contribute to and support student learning in some way. The indispensable work of staff provides the essential services, systems, and structures that make it possible for UNO students to learn. It is thus important that these crucial contributions are documented, so that staff can receive the acknowledgment they deserve. It is also imperative that all members of a learning institution like UNO assess and reflect upon their contributions, so that our goal of continuous improvement - a requirement of our AQIP accreditation path - can be realized.

Assessment and improvement in any context begins with asking questions, such as: Are my unit’s support services actually supporting student learning? Which elements of my unit’s support services are key to support of student learning? How might those services be improved? What specifically could I change about my individual support role to improve support of student learning? The answers to these basic questions are the starting points for staff’s stated support objectives—in other words, the objectives (goals and expectations) we articulate for our individual daily contributions (Daily Work Level assessment) and the collective contributions of our unit/division (Unit/Division Level assessment).

Once we have articulated our expectations in the form of specific support objectives, we should use the following five fundamental questions to guide our assessment plans and activities:

Five Fundamental Questions for Assessment of Staff Contributions

  • How are your stated support objectives appropriate to your mission, function, and services?
  • What evidence do you have that you and your unit achieve your support objectives?
  • In what ways do you analyze and use evidence to improve your support activities?
  • How do you ensure shared responsibility for support of student learning?
  • How do you evaluate and improve the effectiveness of your efforts to assess and improve your and your unit’s support of student learning?

How to Use this Website

As suggested above, assessment of staff support activities and institutional effectiveness takes place at several different levels, each of which has its own requirements (note the navigation links on the left):

This part of the website is organized according to these three distinct levels of staff assessment. Within these three different levels of assessment, however, the basic approach to assessment is consistent, and involves three recursive components:

  • Plan
  • Collect
  • Improve

Thus, within each level of assessment, specific strategies, approaches, materials, resources, and examples that constitute best practice in planning for assessment, collecting and analyzing assessment data, and taking evidence-based action to improve support of student learning are available.