Award comes as new version of learningoutcomes.byu.edu launches
- BYU wins one of 10 Campus Technology Innovators Awards out of 400 entries.
- BYU has also been selected to as one of four universities to present at annual CT conference.
- Award is for BYU's Learning Outcomes website.
BYU’s inventive approach to campus learning outcomes has earned the university its first ever Campus Technology Innovators Award.
BYU’s in-house development of the Learning Outcomes website not only earned the Administrative Systems category award, but also produced an invitation to be one of four universities presenting at the annual CT Education Technology Conference. Nearly 400 entries were submitted for the 10 CT awards.
The Learning Outcomes site allows students to see exactly what knowledge and skills they should be learning from their program of study.
“This project has been a university-wide effort in many ways,” said Jeffrey Keith, BYU associate academic vice president. “Departments across campus have lent their expertise, whether it be from a technology standpoint, an assessment standpoint or a usability standpoint. The collaboration has been excellent.”
For example, the Office of IT recently built a web services ‘super highway’ that allows the Learning Outcomes vehicle to exchange data with other web applications, and, in the last 15 years, Planning and Assessment developed the procedures for “closing the loop” on learning outcomes assessment.
The process has been streamlined and perfected in a new version of the Learning Outcomes site launching this week. The new site is much more intuitive and user-friendly, thanks to the work of BYU’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
"The striking benefit to students made this project deserving of a 2011 Campus Technology Innovators Award," said Andrew Barbour, executive editor of Campus Technology. "The Learning Outcomes website is truly a model for other institutions to follow."
By reviewing the published learning outcomes for a given major, students and instructors can keep in mind and discuss the larger picture of student learning within that major how the courses, projects, assessments, and other learning activities help students accomplish those outcomes.
The new version of the BYU Learning Outcomes site allows faculty members to individual craft the learning outcomes for the courses they teach. It also allows faculty to incorporate their assessment from each semester into the learning outcomes.
“We are hoping to get almost every faculty member to log in and record their course learning outcomes before September 1,” Keith said.
Winners of the Campus Technology Innovators Award are featured in the August issue of Campus Technology magazine. Representatives from CTL, OIT, Planning and Assessment, and the AVP office will travel to Boston in July to accept the award and present the invited special session on how this product works and was developed.
