Why does the C-1 (course template) need to include a question asking for student learning outcomes (SLOs)?
The main external impetus towards gathering this information comes from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), which noted in the “Advancement Section” of its report to UC following its site visit here: The development and implementation of assessment efforts across the university has been noteworthy in the past two years, however, documenting the influence of assessment on student learning is in the early stages. The visiting team recommends that in order to understand the university assessment activity as a whole, UC should create a university-wide planning process for academic assessment with over-arching goals and time tables. Elsewhere in this same report, the HLC reviewers emphasized the need for UC to “create widespread consensus on a definition of assessment that involves help in understanding how to assess student learning outcomes. The faculty must own and value the process.” For many UC courses, defining SLOs for a course or program will be a routine matter because those will
