Building Regional C apacity through Institutional C ollaborations

1. Building Regional Capacity through Institutional Collaborations Ohio PLA with a Purpose Symposium April 29, 2014 Marc Singer, Vice Provost Center for the Assessment of Learning Thomas Edison State College

2. The Problem • How to balance local control and uniqueness with increased need for accountability, tightened funding, technological change, and the College Completion agenda • Local Control vs. Economies of Scale

3. Past and Present • Past: Colleges sought to shape their students’ worldview—Yale created the “Yale Man” • Present: Many institutions outsource much of what used to be proprietary: • Food service • Parking lots • Technology services • Instructional Design resources • Grading

4. What is our core mission? • Teaching and Learning • Helping students achieve success • Serving the state’s workforce development needs?

5. Acceptance of PLA • Does acceptance of PLA = giving up control over some learning? • Learning can come from anywhere, and you didn't direct or control it. • Is learning from elsewhere just as good as what happens at your institution?Data suggests yes: • Fueling the Race to Postsecondary Success shows high success rates for PLA students • 60% of community college students who transfer to four-year schools graduate within four years (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center)—compares with 59% overall graduation rate • May be a tribute to accreditors, independent validators of learning

6. Scale • Advantages of Scale • Dangers of Scale—centralized/standardized • Advantages of Local Control

7. A Middle Ground? • Partnerships with other Colleges--Difficult to create without mandate • Example: Excelsior and Thomas Edison State College: testing and portfolio • Each has its own expertise • Assign one program to each? Share staff and resources? • Logistics, ego, job security got in the way

8. Program Review Consortium • Includes six institutions that conduct reviews of training, licenses, and certificates: • Thomas Edison State College • SUNY Empire State College • Excelsior College • Vermont Community Colleges • Charter Oak State College • Granite State College • Goals: Share reviews with one another, share resources, establish a common definition of college-level learning, ensure standards

9. NJ PLA Network • Includes most two-year and four-year public institutions in NJ • TESC coordinate sharing of standards and methods for evaluating prior learning—all contribute • Institutions without PLA programs send students to Thomas Edison State College for same price • Faculty at other institutions will be trained to evaluate portfolios, review training • Network might expand to other NJ institutions, neighbors in Pennsylvania and Delaware • Issues: transcripting, “ownership” of process

10. Where Partnering Can Work • When the other organization(s) has/have a different mission or set of goals • Example: Saylor Foundation and TESC • Where there are mutual benefits • No one is subordinate to the other • We can assess the final products ourselves • Medium Scale