UPAC

UPAC Changes in Effect Starting Fall 2021

Several significant changes to UPAC reporting and review will be put into effect in the fall 2021 semester.

• UPAC now only requests and reviews assessment reports.  An assessment report gives a summary of the assessment activities that the program has documented since the most recently submitted UPAC report.
• The timing of assessment report submission is now directly linked to the programs APR cycle with submissions requested at 5 years and 2 years before the next APR review.
• Document collection will be done through the UWL Canvas web rather than TaskStream.

The primary responsibility of the University Program Assessment Committee (UPAC) is reviewing program-level assessment plans and assessment reports for academic programs in accordance with Undergraduate Academic Program Review Committee (UAPR) and Graduate Academic Program Review (GAPR) policies. This page describes the policies and processes that UPAC follows when reviewing assessment plans and reports.

Timeline

Each program that is not exempt from UPAC participation is expected to submit two assessment reports to UPAC during a single APR cycle.  These assessment reports are due on February 15th of the academic years that are five-years and two-years prior to that programs next APR review.

The annual UPAC timeline of activities is outlined below.

• Late September: UPAC chair sends an email to each program that contains their next submission deadline.
• Early December: UPAC chair sends a reminder email to each program that is expected to submit in that academic year.  The email reminds the program that their report is due by February 15th.
• February 15: Deadline for programs to upload their assessment report to Canvas.  The program will notify both the UPAC chair and the University Assessment Director of their submission.
• Upon submission: UPAC reviews a submission and sends their review back to the submitter.  Any disagreements between the submitter and UPAC are discussed by those parties.
• Mid May: UPAC forwards all gathered documentation to both APR committees.

Forms, Guidelines, and UPAC Rubric

The assessment report, UPAC rubric, and review form are given below.

• Assessment Report Template
• Annotated Assessment Report: a PDF document that attempts to clarify UPAC expectations.
• UPAC Assessment Report Evaluation Form: the document that UPAC will use to provide feedback to programs.
• UPAC Report Rubric: The rubric that UPAC will apply when completing their review.

The UPAC Report Rubric describes the content that UPAC expects the assessment report to contain.  Please consult this document when writing your assessment report. The Assessment Report Template is a Word document that you can use to generate your report.  UPAC has provided an Annotated Assessment Report that you should consult when completing your report as it attempts to answer common questions related to reporting.  Any questions related to UPAC expectations or procedures should be directed to either the UPAC chair or the University Assessment Director.

UPAC will review assessment reports using the UPAC Report Rubric and complete the UPAC Assessment Report Review Form.  This form will then be forwarded to the submitter.  If a program does not agree with any portion of this UPAC evaluation, UPAC will work with that program to resolve those issues.  At the end of each academic year, UPAC will gather the assessment reports, the UPAC evaluations, and a listing of those programs that were expected to submit yet did not.  UPAC will then forward this documentation to both UAPR and GAPR.  The APR committees expect to refer to these UPAC reports when they review a programs assessment component.

UPAC Review Process

Each assessment report is assigned to two UPAC committee members for Review.  The two reviewers will not be members of the department submitting the assessment report.  Those reviewers select a classification for each criteria.  If the two reviewers disagree on a classification, they will seek to resolve their difference.  If the two reviewers do not come to a common classification, they will forward the issue to UPAC as a whole which will then determine which classification to assign.  Narrative comments, if any, that are part of the review will always be approved by the committee as a whole. 

How to Submit

Programs should submit their assessment report via a Canvas web site.  Please notify via email both the University Assessment Director, Patrick Barlow at pbarlow@uwlax.edu, as well as the chair of UPAC upon submission.