As you may know, Drexel is always searching for new initiatives, novel outreaches and sustainable projects that serve to enhance our professional growth and development opportunities. Once such idea offered by one of our faculty colleagues is to develop a virtual conference book, or proceedings of the conference, that would be comprised of chapters submitted by session presenters that are refereed by a conference publication panel.

This online conference book is the inaugural compilation of chapters submitted by conference presenters. The Assessment Conference has become a highlight of assessment and evaluation throughout the nation and abroad.  Presenters in this process underwent a rigorous vetting for this publication, and as the conference continues to expand, we look forward to an increasing number of presenter chapters in the future. The 2017 book consists of articles from 4 presentations and includes a introduction by Dr. Frederika Reisman: Professor Emerita, Drexel University School of Education and Director of Drexel/Torrance Center for Creativity and Innovation.

The Dalelio, Barker and Selby chapter entitled Listening for Learning: Using Focus Groups to Assess Students’ Knowledge presents a model for using focus groups to evaluate achievement of higher level learning outcomes through a case study approach. They suggest that traditional subjective bias involved in qualitative methods of evaluation can be reduced by using a quantitative coding schema that they describe within a research paradigm. Ozcan-Deniz whose chapter title is Best Practices in Assessment: A Story of Online Course Design and Evaluation, states that research on online course assessment methods is needed as their use is burgeoning. The chapter presents a summary of the basics of online course design and assessment, together with best practices for online assessment. The Buzzetto-Hollywood chapter entitled Establishing an Institutional Commitment to the Digital and Information Literacy of Under-Served College Students points out that despite the ubiquitous prevalence of technology in their lives, most students entering higher education today have an overestimated sense of their computer skills. The chapter reveals that there is a disconnect between reality and expectation due to a general acceptance among most higher education instructors that students come to college with the competencies necessary for college work. Student courses of study therefore do not require computer literacy and applications courses although research addressing this phenomenon have shown major skill deficiencies among students’ digital literacy skills necessary for higher education success. Blumberg’s chapter entitled Educational Development and Assessment: Simultaneously Promoting Conversations that Matter focuses upon learning-centered teaching where the responsibility for learning shifts to the students and the teacher becomes more of a facilitator and less of a disseminator of information. The author shares how the role of a university-based instructional mentor can not only help individual faculty improve teaching, but can affect programs, departments and even the university in terms of strategic plans and accreditation efforts. Blumberg emphasizes the effect of these efforts upon student learning.  A major theme that emerged from a University Advisory Committee (UAC) that met for two years and whose conclusions will be presented by the UAC Co-Chair who is Chair of this Assessment Conference, was recognizing the pervasive disconnect between student and faculty expectations. This phenomenon is touched upon in the Buzzetto-Hollywood chapter in terms of digital and information literacy skills. Often students do not even think about what they expect to glean from a course. Few professors employ a diagnostic approach designed to determine not only student expectations, but also if they have the prerequisite understanding to build upon the course content. Early conversations within a course is recommended with the goals of: 1) Identifying and addressing expectations disconnects and 2) Not assuming that students learned all of the course prerequisites in earlier courses.  There is little question that assessment/teaching and learning conferences such as Drexel University’s Annual Conference on Assessment provide an effective platform for creative discourse and sharing. We trust this inaugural effort will be perceived as evidence in support of that statement.

If you are considering participating in this project in the future, we encourage you to submit a chapter once your presentation has been accepted for the conference.  If you have any questions, please contact Joseph Hawk at jmh356@drexel.edu.

2017 Conference Proceedings Book [PDF]

General Guidelines:

• Acceptance of your session proposal is required before any chapter submission material is reviewed.
• The proposal review process will be concluded by the first week of July.
• The deadline for final submission of a proposed chapter is August 31, 2017.
• The list of chapter authors, their affiliation, and chapter title will be provided within the final document.
• There will be an 8 to 10 chapter limit placed on the publication.

Requirements for Submission:

Submitted chapters must reflect the following criteria:

• Use APA referencing styles
• Limit chapters to no more than 5,000 words including references
• If you choose to include a table, chart, graph or illustration, it must be camera-ready to guarantee publication
• Avoid jargon – your writing should be clear and informative
• The work must be original thinking by the author presented for the first time for publication