Using Anthology Planning for Managing Academic Program Outcomes

Troy Nash
25 steps
3 minutes

Campuslabs

Mercer

Navigate to [https://oie.mercer.edu/](https://oie.mercer.edu/)

Click "Anthology Login".

Click the Login button.

You'll need to enter your normal Mercer credentials in the pop-up window and click "Login". MFA is not required.

Click on the "Anthology" image in the lower left.

Click "Planning".

Click here to access your plan items.

Click this dropdown to select the academic year in which you would like to work.

Click the next dropdown and select "Academic Assessment Plan".

Over the next several steps, you'll use organizational hierarchy to find your program. I'll be using the BS in Health Informatics as an example; your navigation, of course, will be different based on your school/college, department, and degree program. Click on "Academic Affairs".

Click "College of Professional Advancement".

Click "Informatics and Mathematics".

Click "BS, Health Informatics".

Once you've selected your academic program, your SLOs and other plan items will populate the screen to the right.

Each SLO is its own independent plan item. You can access an SLO by clicking on its title.

The SLO description should be a complete and specific statement about what students should be able to do. You can find some instructions for writing good SLOs at [**https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/outcomes/**](https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/outcomes/).

Each SLO should have a curriculum map that outlines how students are prepared to be successful in the skill(s) listed in the SLO.

The "Standards Alignment" section is mostly used by academic programs that have programmatic or disciplinary accrediting standards. This text entry field can be used to show the alignment between your SLOs and those standards.

The "Progress" bar should be used for every outcome every year. If it is an outcome that was assessed in that particular year, the progress should be set to "Completed" at the end of the year. If an outcome was not assessed that year, the progress should be set to "Was not assessed". The progress should never be left blank. Please don't adjust the "Start" and "End" Dates here. These are preset by the AY in which you are working and should not be changed.

In the "First Assessment Method", you should describe how this SLO was assessed during this academic year. To demonstrate alignment between the SLO and the assessment method, you should make sure to include a copy of any rubric or list of criteria that was used in the assessment process. You can find some additional information about appropriate assessment methods at [**https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/measures/**](https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/measures/). Ideally the assessment methods section is one that you should complete early in the academic year. That is, you should have a plan for assessing an SLO at the start of the year, rather than trying to piece together an assessment plan after the academic year is completed. This section of the assessment report is also where you should specify the performance target or benchmark for the SLO. What level of performance on the specified assessment method would convince you that students are able to achieve the SLO? You should also include a rationale for your benchmark. What previous assessment data have helped to inform this benchmark?

Use this dropdown to indicate the type of assessment (direct v/s indirect). You can also find information about different types of assessment at [**https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/measures/**](https://oie.mercer.edu/assessment/measures/).

You can enter your assessment data in "Assessment Results and Analysis". This data should be aggregate data from all students and should not include any identifiable student information (e.g., names or student numbers). In this same field, you can draw some conclusions about whether or not the outcome was achieved by comparing the actual assessment data with the benchmark that you stated earlier.

If you have a second assessment method, there are text entry fields for the methods and results.

If you have a third assessment method, there are text entry fields for the methods and results.

Click "Done" when you are finished. The data will be saved automatically and you can come back at any time to edit or add to the report.