Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

Carolina’s success in achieving its overall mission and strategic priorities is to a large extent dependent on the quality of its individual academic programs and administrative support services. All academic programs and administrative units on campus have identified intended outcomes, follow a plan for measuring and assessing the achievement of those outcomes, and use the results to improve student learning or operational effectiveness.

The following sections provide information for use by faculty and staff in assessing the effectiveness of their efforts and reporting the results as required for University accountability purposes.

Assessment Policies and Procedures

Requirements and expectations for conducting ongoing outcome assessment activities.

Assessment in Academic Programs

Guides to creating a feasible system of assessing student learning outcomes within programs and generating meaningful data for program improvement. Examples and reporting templates are also provided.

Assessment in Administrative Units

Instructions for developing assessment plans to measure achievement of administrative outcomes and reporting how assessment results are being used to enhance organizational effectiveness. Examples and reporting templates are also provided.

Assessment and Evaluation Tools

Web-based tools for documenting assessment activities and reporting results. Also included is a description of the new web-based Course Evaluation System currently being piloted for campus-wide use.

At the institutional level, success in accomplishing Carolina’s mission and achieving its strategic priorities is measured by reviewing two types of information:

UNC-Chapel Hill Performance Trends
Current and historical data collected on a variety of measures.

Peer Comparisons
Reference groups, measures of excellence and national rankings.