Institutional Assessment

Imperial Valley College Adopts New Outcomes Assessment Platform

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/15/21

A Southern California community college has adopted new software, to improve the processes of assessing student learning outcomes. Imperial Valley College (IVC) selected Nuventive, a cloud-based improvement platform, to modernize its institutional planning and outcomes assessment work.

Previously, the school used a shell in learning management system Canvas and spreadsheets to collect and analyze data on learning outcomes. An external team found, however, that the process "resulted in little connection between the collection of assessment data and program review" and "that learning outcomes were being under-utilized in institutional processes," according to a president's message.

The college agreed on two main recommendations, which were demonstrated to campus stakeholders; the majority chose Nuventive. The eventual deployment, which began in July 2021, in time for use in the 2021-2022 academic year, occurred at the same time as a new Tableau business intelligence system adoption.

Nuventive is designed to help people view the higher-level institutional objectives and drill down to review the details of various scenarios and to monitor progress, with data fed from business intelligence tools and other sources.

"We were looking for a solution that would facilitate the program review narrative without going to multiple screens," said Yolanda Cataño, Imperial's interim associate dean of Institutional Effectiveness, Equity and Student Success, in a press release. "With Nuventive, we can now see the narrative next to the information sources in a single screen."

Now, the college uses mapping between Nuventive and Canvas, to align tasks and link learning outcomes assessments data to the program review and planning process.

"This lets us see the bigger picture, so we can highlight successes, needs, challenges and barriers," noted Cataño. "By giving faculty and staff a voice, it helps them highlight ongoing efforts, versus feeling threatened by data."