Step 2: Prepare your Assessment
The Assessment
Now that you have an SLO, you need to think about how the students will accomplish it. In other words, how will your assessment tool —i.e. the paper, essay, exam, project or presentation—allow students to demonstrate mastery of the SLO? Design your assessment with this question in mind.
If your assessment tool is a paper, essay, exam with substantial writing, project or presentation, you might need to develop a rubric for evaluating how students will master the SLO.
If your assessment tool is an objective exam (multiple-choice, for example), you might need to revise or identify groups of questions that, when answered correctly, demonstrate student ability to achieve the SLO.
Write a Rubric for eLumen
View general information about rubrics.
When writing a rubric to enter into eLumen, you will need to follow a specific format. The details of the rubric, of course, are up to you; you just need to put your work into the eLumen format so the software can track your students' achievement.
The instructions below are for those who have instructor access to eLumen. If you have coordinator access and want to set up a more streamlined process for instructors in your discipline, see Setting up eLumen as a coordinator.
- After logging into eLumen, click your department link under Member at the top of the screen. (If you ever need to get back there, just click Home link at the top of the menu on the left or the eLumen icon above that).
- Select your term.
- At the bottom, under What would you like to do? click Create an assessment. (If you want to use an assessment already within your section, choose Consider Recommended Assessment. If you want to use one from another course section, choose Copy Assessments from your other course sections. For the latter two, SLOs should already be attached.)
- Name the assessment, then choose Direct or Declared for Assessment Method. Click Save. (Direct allows you to score students individually; Declared allows you to input aggregated totals.)
- For the assessment you just created, click Name SLOs for this assessment. You can link an existing SLO to the assessment by clicking Link next to the appropriate SLO. Otherwise, click Create a new SLO.
- Enter your SLO in the text area, and click Continue.
- Next to Select or create a rubric, leave Use an existing rubric selected if you want to use a previously created rubric or the Generic 5 Point Rubric. Select Create a new rubric if you want to create one. If you create your own rubric, make sure your area is selected next to Owner, and make sure you create Rubric levels 0-4 by clicking Add rubric level and filling out the fields.
Here's an example rubric for an English paper:
- If you are using an existing rubric, search for yours. To use the Generic 5 Point Rubric, choose Las Positas College in the drop-down next to Owner, type "generic 5 point rubric" into the Text Search box, and click Search. Click Select to choose a rubric. (View more information about the Generic 5-Point Rubric)
- Click Use this rubric - it's the one I want.
- Select next to the appropriate magnitude scale level. Here, you will be setting the appropriate "size" of the intended achievement. For one discrete student activity, choose Assignment / Point in Time. For an assessment across the entire course or for a major course-ending activity, choose Final Project or Exam / Full Semester. For an assessment across the first half of the course, choose Mid-Term Project or Exam. There are two Student Services choices that you can ignore: Length of Program and Academic Year.
- Select the appropriate Standard of Evidence level. Select the number 5.
- Select the Achievement Area (also known as the core competency) to which you believe this SLO should belong. If you do not take this action, this SLO will temporarily be assigned to one named "UNASSIGNED-SLO-RESERVED." Your SLO must be associated with one of the core competencies. Do not select anything aside from choices 1-5.
- Click Save and Close.
- Click Return to what I was doing.
| NOTE: If an assessment connected to an SLO is already set up, you can bypass all of the above. Just click Consider recommended assessments, check the box in front of the desired assessment, and click Apply. |
