Inventories:

Inventories of various documents and activities may provide you with some insights into what is actually happening within your program. You can inventory, for example:

Course objectives in relation to program objectives;

Assignments across courses;

Assignments within courses with multiple sections;

Institutional data.

One of the most valuable tools for guiding your curriculum development and assessment processes is the course objective inventory.

To conduct such an inventory,

1. Determine, if you have not already done so, what the learning goals for your program are;

2. Develop a spreadsheet with those program learning goals in the left hand column;

3. List all your courses across the top row;

4. Note the learning objectives for each course – these will probably be more specific than the program learning goals (See “From Program Goals and Objectives to Course Objectives or Learning Outcomes” in the Policies and Guidelines section);

5. Place an X or a check in any box where the program goals and course learning objectives coincide;

6. Review the resulting spread of objectives to determine whether there might be unnecessary overlap or gaps in what is covered that you did not know about;

7. Determine whether any course needs to be revised to address the overlaps or gaps that you have detected through the inventory.

As one example, see the Sociology inventory of core courses in the pages following this.