When you log in to Planning & Self Study by Watermark, you will see a page that looks like this, with dashboards for each organization- such as a program, co-curricular or administrative unit- for which you have been assigned as a lead contributor to enter assessment and planning data. Each dashboard includes links that take you directly to areas to enter specific content into, such as and assessment plan and mission statement. You may see multiple such dashboards if you have been assigned as a lead contributor for multiple organizations at your institution. If you do not see one or more organizations that you expect to see on your home page, please contact a Planning & Self-Study administrator at your institution for clarification.
As you work in Planning & Self-Study, if you need to return to your home page, you can usually locate a Home breadcrumb link in the upper left-hand corner of the page.
How to Create and Edit Outcomes
Create New Outcomes
If you are entering an organization’s outcomes for the first time, click the Create Outcomes link for that organization.
You will be taken to the Information tab of the Organization Profile, where you will see a text box to enter your mission statement. From here, scroll down to the Outcomes category on this page to begin entering your outcomes. Towards the top of this category, there are two tabs you can navigate between to document different types of outcomes: Learning Outcomes and Success Outcomes. Learning Outcomes intended for outcomes that articulate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions attained by students through learning and/or co-curricular activities, and Success Outcomes articulate other indicators of student success that are not directly tied to master of learning outcomes. To start documenting outcomes of either type, first click the type of outcome set you want to work in and click the Manage Outcomes button.
*To understand the differences between Learning Outcomes and Success Outcomes, you can visit the link here.
This will take you to the following page:
Create New Outcome
To enter an outcome from this page, first click the Create New Outcome button in the middle of the page.
This will open the following window with fields to enter outcome information:
Outcome Title and Description
The top field, which is required to fill out, is for your Outcome Title. This is a text response field with a 70 character limit, intended for a concise descriptor of your outcome:
The following field, Outcome Description, is an optional text response area with a 1,000 character limit, intended for more in-depth details for an outcome that do not fit into the Outcome Title.
Tags
This optional field allows you to add up to 5 short tags to an outcome in order to categorize it with outcomes with similar themes or concepts. When you first click into the tags field, you are given the option to select from a list of tags pre-populated in the system, based on Bloom’s taxonomy. You may directly click on one of those tags to apply it to your outcome.
You can also create customized tags for your organization. To do so, first type directly into the tags field and enter a title for your custom tag with a 30 character maximum, then click Add “[CUSTOM TAG TITLE]”
When you are finished entering content for your outcome, click the Create button. You may also click Cancel to undo any content you have entered for your outcome.
Add Additional Outcomes
Once you have finished entering information for one outcome, if you would like to add another outcome to your set, you may click the Add Additional Outcome button, and then follow the steps from the "Create New Outcome" section in this guide to enter information for additional outcomes.
Save and Close
Once you have finished entering information for all the outcomes you want to enter in your set, it is important to click the Save & Close button to save your changes and return to the Information tab of your Organization Profile. You may also click Cancel to undo any content you have entered for your outcome set.
When you scroll down to your organization’s Outcomes category, you will see the outcomes you entered. You can return to this area and edit your outcome set, by clicking Manage Outcomes.
Edit an Existing Outcome Set
If you want to edit an organization’s existing outcome set from your home page, click the number next to Outcomes for that organization on your home page.
You will be taken to the Information tab of your Organization Profile. Scroll down to locate the Outcomes category of this profile, select the outcome category you would like to edit (Learning Outcomes or Success Outcomes) and click the Manage Outcomes button on the right.
After you have made any changes to your set, remember to click the Save & Close button to save your changes and return to the Information tab of your Organization Profile. You may also click Cancel to undo any content you have entered for your outcome set.
Edit Outcome Set Title
By default, every set of outcomes has a pre-populated tile that follows the convention of “ORGANIZATION NAME Learning Outcomes” or “Success Outcomes” depending on what category of outcome you are working in. You may optionally rename this title by clicking the edit button to the right of it.
This will open a window with a text field with a 210 maximum character count that you can use to edit the name of your outcome set. Click either Update to save your changes or Cancel to undo you any changes you made.
Create New Outcomes
If you need to add new outcomes to your set, click the Create New Outcome button in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
Move Outcomes Up/Down
You can rearrange the order your outcomes appear in this list by clicking the Up and Down arrows to the right on an outcome name to change its position in your set.
Edit an Outcome
If you wish to make minor changes to an existing outcome, locate that outcome in this list, click the menu button to the right of it, and select Edit.
This will open the outcome editing page, where you can update an outcome’s Outcome Title, Outcome Description, and Tags. When you are finished making changes to an outcome, click Update to save your changes. You may also click Cancel to undo any content you have entered for your outcome.
Revise an Outcome
If you wish to make major changes to an outcome and save your existing version of it for future reference, click the menu button to the right of it, and select Revise.
A new panel will open on the right side of your screen with fields to enter information about your revised outcome. The first field to fill out is Effective Academic Year, a drop-down menu to select the year when your revised outcome goes into effect.
The following fields allow you to update the Outcome Title, Outcome Description, and Tags for your outcome. You may also optionally enter text in the Notes field, to document any additional context about your revised outcome. When you are finished, click Create Revision in the upper right-hand corner to save your changes, or click Cancel to undo your changes and delete any content you entered.
Once you save your changes, you may view previous versions of your mission statement by clicking View outcome history.
This will open a panel on the right side of your screen which shows a history of every instance when this outcome was revised. The most current revision of an outcome is labeled as such.
You can restore a previous version of an outcome by first clicking on that version, then clicking Restore Revision. On the following page that opens, identify an Effective Academic Year for your restored mission statement, add optional Notes to provide additional context, then click the Restore button.
Archive an Outcome
If Administrators and Organization Leads need to retire an outcome, they can click the menu button to the right of that outcome and select the Archive option. When an outcome is archived, it will be removed from this outcome set and users will no longer be able to add it to ne assessment Plans, but data associated with that outcome for previous Completed Plans will be preserved. Please Note: Archiving an outcome is a permanent and irreversible decision.
Note: If an outcome is archived and was used in a Curriculum Map, it will automatically get removed from the Curriculum Map.
Save and Close
When you are finished making edits to your Outcome Set, click the Save and Close button in the upper right-hand corner of your page to save your changes and return to the Information tab of your Organization Profile. You may also click Cancel to undo any changes you have made to your Outcome Set.
