WebLion Reps Discuss Assessment Management System

The Penn State WebLion team was well represented at the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Regional Educause Conference in Philadelphia.  Mike Halm, Senior Strategist for the WebLion group and Glenn Johnson, Penn State's e-Portfolio Initiative, Project Manager, discussed the Assessment Management System (AMS) developed in partnership with the College of Education and the core WebLion team.  The pilot system was developed by Education's lead developer, Joe Bigler and WebLion developer guru, Eric Steele.

In a presentation entitled, Assessment Management, WebLion, and E-Portfolios: Making the Connection Work! Glenn and Mike discussed the Open Source principles, development process, the functional requirements and ended with a demonstration of the AMS. Teaming with faculty from Counselor Education, Penn State's e-Portfolio Initiative sought local resources to address program evaluation and accreditation needs.

Having established a curriculum map articulating key assessment activities related to accreditation standards, the WebLion team used Penn State's Plone-based open source content management software to create an online repository for faculty to upload, store, and tag evidence of student learning based on these standards. What was previously an inefficient and redundant paper-based process has become a streamlined assessment management system that can be queried to review progress on key learning outcomes by faculty, assessment coordinators, and outside auditors. The system is currently being piloted in the Counselor Education program during Fall 2008 and Spring 2009.

We are currently looking for additional programs that would like to participate in piloting of these new tools to address program assessment issues.