FAU WAC Assessment Interface

We provide here a set of screen snaps to demonstrate some of the features of our custom WAC assessment interface for evaluating student writing. FAU uses an 11 trait rubric to evaluate near-end-of-term thesis-driven writing. We typically use 25-30 raters to evalutate about 700 papers a year from a stratified random sample of WAC sections across the curriculum. Papers are collected each semester and then evaluated in early May each year. We typically norm for about a day and half before starting rating.  We spot norm after each set of ratings (40-150 papers per set). We rate for 3-4 days. Each paper is rated three times by three different raters. The three scores are processed as modes (keep two same scores and toss odd third score; 2, 2, 4 = 2) or averages (mean of three scores; split scores 1,2,3=2 or 2,3,4=3) to arrive at a single number for each trait. No students or facutly recieve individual scores. All scores are aggregated into course averages for a given year and presented to departments with multiple years of data to determine what benchmarks they want to set for the upcoming year and then they identify selected traits for pedagogical intervention. We have arrived at this system over the past 10 years of assessment and have found that it is extremely consistent and accurate. Take a look at several screen snaps below for additional information.

   

  

  

  

For more information on this interface, please contact Jeff Galin at jgalin@fau.edu.