Preliminary draft of action item re "Quantification/description/demonstration of learning outcomes and program objectives":

We agreed that the critical thing is to urge the creation of a culture of assessment [alternative terms: community of practice, Peter Smith's "culture of evidence"] that is continuously and pervasively collaborative, visible, and evolving. The question is how – and also why.
As answers to "Why?" the important drivers are efficiency/efficacy (for the sake of the students but also institutional survival) and the inevitability of change (which urges the importance of closing the feedback loop and linking across existing gaps and disconnects).

How, then: we should discover and use the best means for collaboration (involving all the stakeholders – including prospective employers – and availing ourselves of cross-institutional means of uncovering and affirming best practices), and we should also do all we can to make successful teaching and learning as well as standards visible. The same technologies that are used to for online teaching and learning may be the means of modeling or demonstrating effective practice. These same technologies (and related ones used in business for workflow and project management) may also be means of facilitating communication and community-building around assessment.

Hello to Assessment Roundtable Participants,

It was delightful to meet all of you! I learned a lot from our brief but fruitful window of sharing, and hope you too found it valuable. A salute to Wayne, Paul, and all who made the forum possible.

Towards the end of our roundtable, we were on the subject of how to both continue and extend our consideration of best practices in online assessment. We also agreed it would be desirable to structure and "aim" our virtual conversation in a way that it complements rather than duplicates work being done in other virtual forums such as Sloan-C and WCET. I would like to invite us to resume the conversation about how to achieve that goal. Thoughts?

Best regards,

Julie