EMERGING DIALOGUES IN ASSESSMENT

Pratt Institute is a premier art, design, and architecture institution located in Brooklyn, NY. In 2023, the Academic Senate and Office of the Provost partnered to create an Institute-wide assessment policy, which became the bedrock for an assessment infrastructure. Assessment is crucial in many respects, as it helps generate understanding and evidence of what has been accomplished (Melguizo & Coates, 2017). According to McClendon and Ho (2016), “Establishing and building a culture of improvement is important in creating and sustaining a high-quality institution” (p. 13).

One component of the policy was the introduction of an Assessment Facilitator (AF) to serve as the liaison for their department or program to the Office of the Provost. The Director of Assessment, situated in the Office of the Provost, would provide AFs with resources and professional development to fulfill their roles. According to McMillan et al. (2020), “The role of administrative support to student success is critical, especially in the addressing of motivational problems of faculty, ensuring adequate resources affecting faculty workload, and ‘buy-in’ of faculty to student learning assessment strategies” (p. 118).

The Director of Assessment began exploring ways to create a digital assessment resource hub. In collaboration with the Student Success + Assessment Librarian, a LibGuide emerged as the best solution. LibGuides is a platform that librarians use to create digital research guides. The goal of the LibGuide was to provide AFs with a digital repository for real-time learning. Establishing an online assessment resource hub soon became a priority for training AFs and promoting a culture of assessment at the school.

Neuhaus et al. (2021) argue that LibGuides dominate the library guide ecosystem. Giullian and Zitser (2015) tout the benefits of LibGuides for everything from assessment to pedagogy. Crego-Emley and Lambaria (2024) define three types of research guides that can be made with the LibGuides platform: How-to Guides, Course Guides, and Subject Guides. Assessment LibGuides fall within the Subject Guide category.

The LibGuides platform is useful in many ways. According to Neuhaus et al. (2021) LibGuides allows librarians to easily produce research guides. LibGuides provide robust data analytics of usage, which can help determine faculty interest and/or need. At Pratt, data analytics illustrated the importance of specific artifacts. For example, the Curriculum Map Template was the most clicked upon item in the guide. After the landing page, the page on Learning Outcomes was the most visited page. These analytics can provide indicators of potential areas of growth opportunity.

The Student Success + Assessment Librarian was enthusiastic about this collaboration in creating an assessment LibGuide, since it would provide an avenue of assessment support and would direct faculty to library resources. Wilkins and Donat (2021) posit that collaboration is the only power needed to build an assessment infrastructure. Collaboration with the Student Success + Assessment Librarian was imperative to the development and maintenance of an assessment resource hub.

Steps for Creating an Assessment LibGuide

Though the process of building an assessment LibGuide is time consuming, the benefits far outweigh the effort. Building this digital repository contains several components: contacting a librarian, conducting a LibGuide review, clarifying the scope of the guide, establishing the roles and responsibilities, building the LibGuide, and soliciting feedback.

Contact a librarian

Institutions usually have several librarians depending on the size and type of school. Pratt Institute had a dedicated librarian for student success and assessment which made knowing who to contact simple. Working with an experienced librarian in assessment is ideal but not always possible. Librarians who build and support LibGuides are an invaluable resource, regardless of their assessment knowledge level. Being prepared to share an overview of assessment may be helpful.

Conduct a LibGuide review

Remember that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Though assessment LibGuides may be relatively new to higher education, a number of examples exist such as Otis College, Hagerstown Community College, and DePauw University. Conducting an extensive review of them may provide ideas and guidance. Comparing the navigation and organization style is informative. Another reason to conduct this research is that it can become a way to collect additional resources, like current books and articles on assessment.

Clarify the scope of the LibGuide

Assessment for student learning improvement is multi-faceted and at a minimum involves the following: establishing targets for improvement, identifying the improvement initiative and its scope, determining curricula and or pedagogical impacts, differentiating forms of evidence and measurements, and evaluating the improvement process (Stitt-Bergh et al., 2018). Given the comprehensive and often complex nature of assessment, it is important to identify the focus that the LibGuide will address. It is advisable to begin with a manageable and essential list of categories. For example, Outcomes, Curriculum Maps, and Rubrics are pretty standard to assessment and may be a good place to begin. In the future, scaling up becomes relatively seamless. After our first year, we added a “Sharing Our Story” category to provide a place for faculty and staff to share and learn from each other. 

Establish the roles and responsibilities

Clear communication makes the establishment of roles and responsibilities a relatively straight forward process. Some librarians feel comfortable with curating and collecting the content; however, the assessment professional may already have content ready for use. Librarians may feel more comfortable with the graphic design aspect and the content organization. Once clear roles, responsibilities, and deadlines are determined, the work can commence.

Build the LibGuide

In many cases, it may be beneficial for the Librarian to construct and edit the LibGuide using the SpringShare software. While a library admin can create an editor account for other individuals within LibGuides, the backend of the LibGuides platform is idiosyncratic and often requires a learning curve on the part of the editors. 

When constructing the LibGuide, make sure to follow the best practices that the institution library has established for web content creation. If uploading PDF documents, make sure that they have undergone Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and ensure that all images have alt text to support users who require screen readers. To keep users on the guide, embed videos instead of adding hyperlinks to them where possible. There may be PDF documents with content that should be restricted to the members of the institution. If the institution uses Google, instead of uploading these documents to the LibGuide Asset Manager, one can upload them to a Google Drive, set the access permissions of the Drive to Institute-only, and in the LibGuide add links to the documents in the Drive.

Solicit feedback

Soliciting feedback from multiple stakeholders prior to publication is essential. Higher education often operates in silos that can create a myopic view of the world. Since professionals view the world through their content specific lens, understanding various perspectives and needs of assessment from differing end-users is beneficial. Engaging in the process may also illuminate gaps that need to be filled prior to launch. 

Benefits of an Assessment LibGuide

LibGuides are a beneficial platform for disseminating information. For example, recorded assessment workshops appear on the LibGuide, and AFs receive the recording link to share it with their respective departments and programs. AFs who were unable to attend can view the recording, and it remains available for the Pratt community to review. The LibGuide is promoted at all institutional events that include assessment. Even non-AF faculty members report that they now access the LibGuide prior to embarking on assessment related activities. Data analytics reveal that there were 1,687 visits to the guide between August 2024 and August 2025.

In addition, LibGuides are useful for assessment purposes for several other reasons. They are dynamic living documents that provide current information. Navigation is seamless for readers and content organization is simple. Edits can be made by a librarian without IT expertise. Links to internal and external resources are readily accessible. Various types of media, like embedded video, can be housed on this robust platform. Assessment LibGuides provide one-stop shopping for assessment information.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the creation of an assessment-focused LibGuide proved to be a valuable and collaborative endeavor that supports broader institutional goals for enhancing student learning through assessment. It resulted in a centralized, accessible resource that strengthens assessment efforts and promotes ongoing engagement. By leveraging the LibGuides platform and partnering with key stakeholders like Librarians, the initiative can be an essential contribution to building an assessment infrastructure.

References

Crego-Emley, A., & Lambaria, K. (2024). Expanding the pathfinder’s purpose: A pedagogical approach to redesigning LibGuides. Public Services Quarterly, 20(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228959.2024.2334871

Giullian, J. C., & Zitser, E. A. (2015). Beyond LibGuides: The past, present, and future of online research guides. Slavic & East European Information Resources, 16(4), 170–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/15228886.2015.1094718

McClendon, K., & Ho, T. (2016). Building a quality assessment process for measuring and documenting student learning. Assessment Update, 28(2), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/au.30053

McMillan, L., Johnson, T., Parker, F. M., Hunt, C. W., & Boyd, D. E. (2020). Improving student learning outcomes through a collaborative higher education partnership. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 32(1), 117–124. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1259548.pdf

Melguizo, T., & Coates, H. (2017). The Value of assessing higher education student learning outcomes. AERA Open, 3(3), 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1177/2332858417715417

Neuhaus, C., Cox, A., Gruber, A. M., Kelly, J., Koh, H., Bowling, C., & Bunz, G. (2021). Ubiquitous LibGuides: Variations in presence, production, application, and convention. Journal of Web Librarianship, 15(3), 107–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/19322909.2021.1946457

Stitt-Bergh, M., Kinzie, J., & Fulcher, K. (2018). Refining an approach to assessment for learning improvement. Research & Practice in Assessment, 13, 27–33. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1206371.pdf

Wilkins, K. O., & Donat, S. R. (2021). Collaboration is the only superpower needed: Reflecting on building an assessment culture at Messiah University. Assessment Update, 33(1), 6–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/au.30241