Assessment has been the subject of extensive study and continues to be an important topic on university campuses in the United States and around the globe (Postareff, Virtanen, Katajavuori, and Lindblom-Ylanne 2012).  More and more, stakeholders of universities are demanding evidence that students have mastered the skills and knowledge they need when they leave the institution (Kanter 2011). The American Peter Ewell provided three acute reasons for this interest including the growing emphasis on accountability, an increase in competitiveness in the higher education marketplace, and the constrained financial conditions with which universities are dealing (2009). Arum and Roksa similarly state in their book “Academically Adrift” (2011), “Stakeholders in the higher education system have increasingly come to raise questions about the state of collegiate learning for a diverse set of reasons” (p. 1).  They go on to point out that “… concerns about turning out productive workers and not wasting resources have become paramount in an era of globalization and fiscal constraints” (p. 18).
     Even though this emphasis on accountability has been present in U.S. colleges and universities for the last couple of decades through its regional accreditation processes (Miller 2012), issues of accountability are now being discussed globally, particularly in Europe where Quality Assurance  mechanisms are paramount to the Bologna Process.  The recently completed mapping project by the E4 organizations on the implementation of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) provided evidence of nearly all institutions have a QA policy statement (2009). However, the report is quick to point to the importance of the link between awareness of the ESG and implementation, which widely varies.
     This global call for accountability and quality assurance in higher education has demanded institutional focus on teaching, learning, and the educational environment.  The use of student learning assessment serves as the central component of this emerging culture of continuous improvement (Liu 2011) that also includes administrative functions.  However,  our focus must also be on how we assess, and the methods we use, as much as what is assessed.
     Developing a vibrant, university-wide culture of improvement vis-à-vis assessment has been a primary goal for the Office of Assessment and Evaluation (OAE) at Virginia Tech over the past six years. Specifically, the work has focused on putting into place an assessment system that works with our university structures and ethos, is educationally sound, is sustainable, and can be communicated to our constituents in an effective way.  It has also been a process that deliberately emphasized the improvement functions of assessment while recognizing the necessary accountability functions (see Aper, Culver, and Hinkle 1990).  This workshop is intended to provide case examples of how institutions can build units that provide assessment and evaluative services to answer accountability pressures as well as gather information for improvement in administrative,  academic, and research areas.

Aper, J. P., S. M. Culver, and D. E. Hinkle. 1990. Coming to terms with the accountability versus improvement debate in assessment. Higher Education, 20 471-483. Arum, R., and J. Roksa. 2011. Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Ewell, P. T. 2009. Assessment, accountability, and improvement. (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 1). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Liu, L. 2011. Measuring value-added in higher education: Conditions and caveats – results from using the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP). Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 36, no. 1: 81-94. Miller, M. A. 2012. From denial to acceptance: The stages of assessment. (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 13). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment. Postareff, L., V. Virtanen, N. Katajavuori, and S. Lindblom-Ylanne. 2012. Academics’ conceptions of assessment and their assessment practices. Studies in Educational Evaluation 38: 84-92.