The Evaluation Office of the Program Services Department is responsible for the evaluation of programs and policies, and the ongoing evaluation of the College.  Program evaluations are carried out by Program Evaluation Committees, under the direction of the Evaluation Office. The goal of ongoing evaluation is to support Dawson College's commitment to providing the highest quality of educational programs possible and to provide a means for examining, evaluating and recommending improvement to the programs currently offered by the College.

Program Evaluation

Program evaluations are carried out by Program Evaluation Committees, under the supervision of the Evaluation Office, and with the help and guidance of the Program Evaluator.  Programs are usually evaluated after one cohort of students has graduated from a revised program and, subsequently, within the next 10 years after the first evaluation.

A program evaluation usually begins with the development of an evaluation plan that is submitted by the Program Evaluation Committee to various vetting bodies, including Senate, for review. Once the plan is adopted by Senate, the data collection and data analysis phase of the evaluation is launched.  This usually involves surveying a program’s major stakeholders such as students, teachers, graduates, and employers and the analysis of program documentation such as course outlines, assessment tools, minutes of meetings, etc. After all the data has been collected and analyzed, an evaluation report is prepared by the writers appointed by the Program Evaluation Committee.  The evaluation report is submitted to the Program Evaluation Committee for review and feedback and it is at this point that recommendations are also drafted by the committee. The report is then submitted to the various vetting bodies and then eventually to Senate for review.

The following programs are currently in the process of being evaluated:

•    Mechanical Engineering Technology
 

Evaluation of Policies

This year the College is evaluating its Institutional Student Evaluation Policy (ISEP) as requested by the Commission d’évaluation de l’enseignement collégial (CEEC) for compliance and effectiveness.  All colleges across the province are being asked to evaluate their policies as well. At the end of the evaluation process, a report will be sent to the CEEC and the College will use the results of this report to make improvements to ISEP. The Program Services Department is responsible for conducting this evaluation.

As part of the evaluation of ISEP, the College will be surveying students, faculty, professionals, support staff and administrators to ensure that all major stakeholders responsible for or affected by the policy are consulted.


Ongoing Evaluation

The development of a culture of ongoing evaluation is an important goal of the College’s Strategic Plan and will be a cornerstone of a new Institutional Evaluation Policy and Procedures that the department has been asked to develop.

To start developing a culture of ongoing evaluation, and to build throughout the College, the Program Services Department has developed a consultation process to help the various sectors and services prioritize some themes from the Strategic Plan and then develop a set of outcomes and indicators for each theme.   Everyone in the College is being asked to participate in this process as the first step towards developing a culture of ongoing evaluation. Once the consultation process has been completed, the department will draft an Institutional Evaluation Policy based on the feedback it receives through the consultation process.