Closing the Loop: Development of a Dashboard for Quality Improvement of Business Education Programs

Business schools continuously improve their processes and program assessment activities, but fall short in achieving faculty\u27s awareness of process steps and disseminating results to inform and trigger continuous improvement actions. The assessment process of the Craig School of Business at California State University, Fresno had worked well. It evaluated student learning of core competencies of its Business Administration degree programs. The assessment process had a sound set of program goals and student learning outcomes and metrics. Learning outcomes were measured semiannually, and reports were written annually. Assessment results consistently surpassed benchmarks. Still, the assessment process did not effectively disseminate results and findings, which often led to a lack of process awareness and the inability to motivate and engage faculty in the overall assessment and improvement process. The Assessment Team launched an initiative to design and implement a dashboard that would track assessment scores as a means to address these shortcomings and ensure closing the loop with actual improvement results. This article presents the development process of the Assurance of Learning Dashboard and the effects of using the dashboard to facilitate the analysis and dissemination of assessment results. Findings suggest that the dashboard was successful. However, documentation for closing the loop activities continue to be a challenge. Implications for academic institutions and future research opportunities are presented