Academic Program Review

Academic Program Review (APR) is a function of the colleges in cooperation with the Office of the Deputy Provost and the University Faculty Senate. It is designed to evaluate the quality, productivity, and role of each academic unit and program in the fulfillment of the University’s mission and strategic priorities.

How can CTAL assist you in the Academic Program Review (APR) process?

We can assist in helping you understand the quality of your educational offerings. To accomplish this, we often assist the faculty in create up-to-date curriculum maps for the APR. Conducting a curriculum mapping exercise allows you to acquire many of the elements required in the Academic Program Review Guidelines.

Curriculum mapping is a process that supports Institutional Effectiveness by illustrating the integration among your program, courses, and class assignments. A map is a matrix that documents the connection between outcomes (what students will be able to do or demonstrate as a result of their studies) and where the curriculum addresses those outcomes. You can develop maps for any level at the university: course, program, college/school, or institution. When complete, maps become a simple analytic tool for tracking and communicating curriculum content (Linda Neavel Dickens, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, Spring 2011).

Why should your department have an updated curriculum map?

You will have an up-to-date listing of courses offered and a graphic representation about how students achieve your desired competencies through the curriculum as it is offered. This matrix will inform you about gaps in curriculum as well as redundancies. In particular, the exercise will allow you to provide:

Description of curricula and programs
Description of the unit’s role in meeting University curricular needs, such as general education initiatives including first-year experience, study abroad, undergraduate research, service learning and other discovery learning programs, capstone course (s), group requirements, multicultural courses, honors courses, and prerequisites for other programs.
Description of requirements for strengthening written and oral communication as well as quantitative reasoning.

How else can CTAL assist you in the APR?

We can help you measure what you do and answer these requirements:

Information about student quality, diversity and achievements.
Description of the undergraduate student learning outcomes (including clear statement of expected student learning outcomes in the areas of knowledge, skills, and competencies), assessment plans, and utilization of assessment results.
Evidence of curricular improvements based on student learning outcomes and changes in the discipline or field of study.

A statement of the purposes, development and planning for graduate education.

Description of the graduate curriculum.
Description of graduate student learning outcomes (including clear statement of expected student learning outcomes in the areas of knowledge, skills, and competencies), assessment plans and utilization of assessment results.
Evidence of curricular improvements based on student learning outcomes and changes in the discipline or field of study.