Set Up Canvas Outcomes for Program Assessment

Relevant Roles

Before starting the process of creating account-level outcomes for the purpose of program evaluation, a few roles and responsibilities must be defined:

Education Technology Office (ETO)

Who: one or more ETO staff will be designated to support this project (pending approval by Director of Academic Technology)

Responsibilities: Configure sub-account and permissions. Provide guidance and support for all Canvas Outcome workflows.

Department Representative

Who: one or more representatives of the department or program (chair, faculty members, administrative assistants, etc). There can be multiple department representatives assigned to various tasks, with different levels of permission

Responsibilities: Manage project (set deadlines, communicate to stakeholders, etc). Develop assessment criteria. Receive admin access to the Canvas account. Add/Create Outcomes and Rubrics in Canvas, and align with assignments. Pull reports. Maintain copies of assessment records (outside of LMS) in compliance with relevant policies.

Faculty members 

Who: all instructors of courses for which work will be assessed

Responsibilities: receive training and assist in setup at the level of their own courses. Complete assessments of student work (rubrics, outcomes).

Process

1. Sub-Account Setup:
   • Department representative provides list of courses and designated admins
   • ETO creates subaccount(s), if an appropriate sub-account does not already exist, assigns account roles

2. [OPTIONAL] Complete Formatted Spreadsheet of Outcomes (Learning Standards)

This step is optional. Outcome information can be entered directly without creating a pre-formatted spreadsheet (see Step 3b). If you have only a small list of of Outcomes (25 or less), it is likely faster to just enter the outcomes directly.

• ETO provides template and guidance for completing template
• Department representative completes spreadsheet.
• Outcome Import Format Documentation

3. Input Outcomes into Canvas (2 options)

1. Import Manually through the User Interface
   • ETO  provides guidance to Department Representative on how to do this.
   • Video (7m): Access SubAccount and Add Outcomes Manually
2. (OR) Upload Outcomes using a CSV
   • ETO uploads Outcomes or provides guidance to Department Representative on how to do this.
   • Video (3m): Importing Outcomes with CSV

4. Create Rubrics
   • ETO provides guidance on how to add account-level rubrics.
   • Department representative creates rubrics
   • [Video: How to Add or Edit Account-Level Rubrics]
5. Add Rubrics to Assignments

• Department representative provides guidance to faculty on how to add rubrics to assignments
• Faculty members add rubrics to assignments.
• Video: Adding a Rubric to An Assignment

Note: A given assignment can only have one rubric attached to it. If a faculty member wants to use their own rubric that is specific to that assignment or course, they can create a new rubric that has both their criteria and account-level Outcomes according to the instructions here: Creating a Rubric with both Instructor-Specific Criteria and Account-level Outcomes

6. [Optional] Add Rubrics and/or Align Outcomes to Quizzes, Quiz Questions, and Graded Discussions
   • Rubrics can be attached to both Classic quizzes and New Quizzes using the process described for Assignments in Step 5. The rubric will still need to be completed manually by the instructor in Speedgrader. In other words, neither the student's completion or score on the quiz will generate any Outcome data. For that to happen, Outcomes must be directly aligned to quiz questions as described below. 
   • Outcomes can be attached directly to Quiz Questions (New Quizzes Only), without being in a rubric. However, account-level outcomes need to be added to the course before they can be aligned to quiz questions. Video: Adding Outcomes to Quizzes
   • Outcomes cannot be directly aligned to Classic Quizzes questions, but they can be aligned to question banks. See How do I align an outcome with a question bank?
   • Rubrics, including rubrics with Outcomes, can be attached to and Discussion boards (if they are graded discussions).  Video: Adding a Rubric to a Discussion
7. Pull Reports

• ETO provides guidance on pull reports.
• Department representative downloads Outcomes Results reports and manipulates data using their program of choice (Excel, Tableau, etc)
• Video: Pulling Account-Level Outcomes Report

Additional Resources

Outcomes in Canvas: An Overview Handout