The Institutional Assessment website at the Community College of Philadelphia provides a centralized point of access to information on institutional assessment procedures and results. The Planning and Assessment Linkages chart demonstrates the interrelationship among the college’s mission, institutional planning documents and institutional assessment efforts. The site provides access to the Office’s comprehensive Assessment Plan, which explains institutional effectiveness at the Community College of Philadelphia. The Assessment Committee, which monitors all assessment efforts at the institution, maintains an online Assessment Library containing information for the college’s staff to support decision making and planning.

The Office of Assessment and Evaluation explains the college’s approach to assessment along with activities and contact information for the institution’s coordinator of assessment. The site illustrates the assessment cycle and provides brief instructions on how to plan, identify and collect assessment data. It further explains how to analyze data and use it in a meaningful way.

The Office of Assessment and Evaluation provides a detailed breakdown of assessment at all levels at the college. Institution Level Assessment provides information on general education and core competencies rubrics. Program Level Assessment identifies student learning outcomes on a program-level and provides access to Customized Assessment Repository User’s Guide. Course Level Assessment provides information on course assessment. Further, course learning outcomes are annually evaluated and the site provides a sample evaluation report along with a user guide to illustrate the process. Finally, there are a plethora of assessment resources, which are grouped on the basis of area of interest: general interest, course-level, program-level, institution-level, guidelines and forms.

Given the emphasis on communicating the role of assessment at the institution, along with the focus on transparency and access to guides and instructional material, the Institutional Assessment website at the Community College of Philadelphia is this month’s Featured Website in the category of Communication.