To increase access to documents important for the University's reaccreditation process, the library will incorporate an assessment archive into the Brown Digital Repository, a database created in 2009 to centralize academic documents.
The archive — which administrators project will be ready by 2013 — will facilitate data collection for external and internal evaluation processes, such as departmental reviews. This timing corresponds with the University's next accreditation assessment.
The University prepares a large number of documents to meet reaccreditation standards every 10 years. In its last evaluation, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges recommended an increased emphasis on "learning outcomes," or what students gain from undergraduate concentrations. The University regularly reviews both concentrations and departments, resulting in large quantities of data. The assessment archive will serve as "a way of keeping track of all this very good material that departments generate," said Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron.
Bergeron said this tool will be useful not only for external assessments but also for assessments within the University. For example, a new head of a department will be able to use information collected in the archive to track past progress toward departmental goals.
"Assessment is about awareness," Bergeron said, adding that awareness of strengths and weaknesses is important both institutionally and educationally. The archive will also track improvements in student writing. The class of 2013 — which will graduate the same year the archive is projected for completion — is the first class with an enforced writing proficiency requirement.
The archive is one part of the larger digital repository, which "serves as a digital store for institutional memory," said Andrew Ashton, director of digital technologies. The repository is a "powerful engine for getting our content out there."
