Get Started with Outcomes Assessment
Outcomes assessment provides an additional set of tools that allow privileged users to collect samples of student work that can be used for both institutional and program assessment activities. The tools related to outcomes assessment—goals, rubrics, and enterprise surveys—are integrated into the assessment experience to empower evidence-based decision making for your institution.
Accessing Outcomes assessment
In the Ultra experience, system administrators and other privileged users can access the Tools page from Base Navigation and the select Goals. System administrators can access any or all tools from the Administrator Panel.
Outcomes assessment roles
Access to the tools within the integrated outcomes assessment experience is controlled by role-based privileges. Users can be granted the right to perform an action within the system because they have a particular role that includes the privilege to take that action.
Blackboard ships with a set of default roles that are described in this table. The system administrator can create specific roles for users that grant or remove specific privileges to match a user's professional responsibilities to outcomes assessment privileges.
Role | Privileges |
|---|---|
System administrator | Administers outcomes assessment through the Administrator Panel. Automatically has access to all objects and data in Blackboard. Adds and removes users and assigns user roles. |
Assessment manager | Has access to all of the tools included in the integrated experience for outcomes assessment including goals, evidence collection, rubrics, and enterprise surveys. The assessment manager can create and edit objects within any of these tools. |
Goals manager | Has access to the Goals tool within Blackboard and can create and manage goals for the institution. This user doesn't have access to collect evidence related to these goals. |
Rubrics manager | Has access to the System Rubrics tool and the ability to create rubrics that are used to evaluate collected evidence. |
Survey author | Has access to the Enterprise Survey tool and can create, deploy, and analyze surveys across the institution. |
Multiple roles or independent and additive roles
These roles are system roles that you can assign to any user. A user can have more than one system role so you can provide exactly the right type of access needed for each user. When you assign multiple roles to a user, the permissions they're granted are additive. For example, someone with the roles of rubrics manager and survey author can create and manage rubrics in the system as well as create, send, and analyze surveys. Only the system administrator can assign roles to users.
Roles in institutional hierarchy
If your role is associated with institutional hierarchy nodes, you will only have permissions to collect evidence from those nodes which you are associated with.
Remove roles
Only roles created by the system administrator can be removed. You can't remove roles that are shipped with outcomes assessment. If a user has only one role and that role is removed from the system, the user loses all outcomes assessment privileges.