Many universities and academic programs across the country are now using such methods in their assessment programs. The main idea behind the system is that people who have been out of school for a few years may see things differently than current students or recent graduates. When an alumnus comes to BECA s alumni website, he or she is asked to provide a brief career summary and to complete a short questionnaire rating the amount of learning and long-term value of key areas of the curriculum. For example, one of BECA s main learning objectives is that graduates should have acquired research and writing skills. Elsewhere in the questionnaire they are asked to rate writing and research according to the importance of these skills to their careers.
Alumni enter their responses by clicking on boxes displayed on the web page.
When they are finished they click another box to submit the completed questionnaire. The response is then automatically entered into a database. A faculty monitor can later use the data base program to summarize and tabulate responses. A list of mean scores for each department learning objective, for example, provides a good overview of how alumni view their education in the BECA program. Career updates provide insights into the relationship between the program and the professional world.