A successful implementation of Outcomes Assessment Projects will require periodic upkeep of institutional data, to ensure that the required Terms, Courses, and other elements are available for inclusion in your assessment projects. Because certain elements in the platform serve as the parent under which additional elements live (for instance, how Courses would be listed under a Program), it is important to consider your updates in the order shown below.
Note: The templates must be imported by Watermark staff. Please add the appropriate data to the templates and either Submit A Request, email support@watermarkinsights.com, or send the files in a way that has been preconfigured for your institution.
All imports should only include data for courses and students who will be assessed - not the entire course list or student population.
Click the file type in the list below to get more details:
- Organizational Hierarchy - the Institution and its Schools and Departments.
- Academic Sessions - the institution’s academic years and terms.
- Courses - the courses from which artifacts will be collected.
- Users - faculty who will be creating assignments and/or evaluating artifacts in an assessment project.
- Course Sections (Optional) - used to prevent faculty from evaluating their own students.
- Section Enrollment (Optional) - the optional Section Enrollment file groups faculty with the course sections they lead, for the purpose of preventing them from evaluating their own students.
- Demographic Data/Academic Data (Optional) - provides additional data points that can be added to reports
When importing areas of your Organizational Hierarchy, it is important to note the manner in which the nodes interact. At the top-level will be the Institution. The level beneath this will be the Schools (i.e. School of Education or School of Nursing). The Schools will serve as the Parent Nodes of the Departments, which will themselves be the Parent Nodes of Courses. Courses will of course be the Parent Node for Course Sections, which are the only optional level of the hierarchy. This relationship is illustrated below:
The Organizational Hierarchy Import
When populating the Organizational Hierarchy template, you will need to provide values for the:
- Node ID - An abbreviation that identifies the School, Department, etc.
- Node Name - The proper name of the School, Department, etc.
- Node Type - The only acceptable values are Institution, School, Department, Program
- Parent Node ID - Where applicable, the node under which the area falls. (In the example above, the Department of Early Childhood Education would fall under the School of Education, and thus the Parent Node ID 'EDU' is used)
The Academic Sessions Import
When populating the Academic Sessions template, you will need to provide values for the:
- Session ID - An identifier that will be referenced in multiple areas of OAP
- Session Name - The proper name of the Session
- Session Type - Distinguishing "Academic Years" from "Semesters" or "Terms"
- Start Date - The date that the session begins. The Start Date for a Semester/Term must be within the date range of the Academic Year which it falls under. (Format MM/DD/YYYY)
- End Date - The date that the session ends. The End Date for a Semester/Term must be within the date range of the Academic Year which it falls under. (Format MM/DD/YYYY)
- Parent Session ID - Where applicable, identifies the Academic Year under which the Semester/Term falls.
The Courses Import
When populating the Courses template, you will need to provide values for the:
- Course ID - A unique identifier; typically the course prefix and number
- Course Display Code - How the Course is displayed in the system (we recommend using the same value as the Course ID).
- Course Name - The proper name of the Course
- Parent Node ID - Identifies the Program under which the Course is offered.
The User Template
See this link for Users and Enrollment File Field Definitions
When populating the User template, you will need to provide values for the:
- Person ID - A unique identifier; typically the institutional ID or email address.
- Status - The only acceptable statuses are Inactive, Available, Active. Available indicates that the user is in the system and can be added to projects, but cannot log in.
- Node ID - The area of the hierarchy under which the individual belongs. For users with the Faculty role, this node affiliation influences which Projects they have access to.
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Role* - The acceptable roles are:
- Assessment Coordinator - Can create and manage Outcomes Assessment Projects
- Faculty - Can create Assignments and upload Rosters within a Project to which the user has access
- Evaluator - Can score artifacts
- First and Last Names
- Email Address - Must be unique to the user within Outcomes Assessment Projects
*Please note that it is possible for a user to have multiple roles. In the import file, they are to be separated by a semi-colon, such as "Evaluator;Faculty".
Course Section Import (Optional)
- Section ID - Unique ID number for the individual course section
- Section Name - Full name of the course section
- Parent Course ID - Course ID (from course file). Identifies the course to which the section belongs
- Term ID - Term ID (from Term file) associated with the course section
Sectional Enrollment Import (Optional)
- Person ID - Unique identifier provided in the User file for the individual
- Node ID - Node from the Organizational Hierarchy file to which the user belongs
- First Name - User’s first name
- Last Name - User’s last name
- Email - User’s email address
- Role - User’s role in the system
- Course ID - ID from the course file
- Section ID - ID from the section file
- Term ID - ID from the Academic Sessions file
- Enrollment Status - Active to confirm user is the instructor of record for the identified course and section
Academic and Demographic Data (Optional)
See this link for Demographic and Academic File Field Definitions
The Academic Data and Demographic Data imports are NOT required. However, they allow for additional data points to be added to student records. These data points could then be included in assessment reports, which can be helpful when further manipulating data.
The Demographic import can include the following data points:
- Address
- City
- State
- Phone
- Birth Year
- Gender
- Race/Ethnicity
- US Residency Status
- US Residency State
- Country of Origin
- Marital Status
- First Generation Student
- PELL Eligibility
- Admission Year
- Transfer Student
The Academic import can include the following data points:
- Term Title
- Major
- Minor
- Full-time or Part-time
- GPA
- Degree Level
- Class Level
- Credits Earned
- Student Type