As a contributor, when you log into Planning & Self-Study, you will see 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 contains information about the assigned area as well as various links to access the area and enter data. 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.
Creating and Editing Curriculum Maps
About Curriculum Maps
Planning & Self-Study by Watermark allows you to demonstrate to what degree your program’s learning outcomes are addressed in your courses. This is a feature that is exclusive to program-type organizations at your institution. Before you can create a Curriculum Map for your program, you must document your program’s learning outcomes (see Help Center section titled "How to Create and Edit Outcomes") and then you must identify the courses offered by your program (see Help Center section titled "Adding Courses to a Program").
Create/Edit a Curriculum Map
You can access your Curriculum Map in two ways: the Edit Map link in the dashboards in the My Leadership section on the Home Page or through the Organization Management tab.
*Note: Curriculum Maps can only be created for programs. If you don't see the Create Curriculum Map option, it is most likely because the organization you are under is listed as a different type of organization, other than Program.
To Edit Map on a program dashboard, click the Edit Map link:
Home Page Navigation
To start work on your program Curriculum Map, first locate your program dashboard from your home page, then click either Create Map (if you are creating Curriculum Map for the first time) or Edit Map (if you are editing an existing Curriculum Map).
Organization Management Tab Navigation
To access the Curriculum Map through Organization Management:
1. Click on Organization Management on the Navigation Panel on the left side of your screen and click the name of your program.
2. Click Curriculum (1) on the left and then the Pencil icon on the right (2)
Curriculum Map within Curriculum tab for Program type Organizations
Either option (Home Page Navigation, or Organization Management Tab navigation) will take you to the following page for editing the curriculum map for the program you have selected:
Adding or Removing Outcomes from a Program Curriculum Map
Your program’s outcome set is located on the left-hand side of your Curriculum Map, listing the outcomes within it from top to bottom. If you need to edit your outcome set, click the icon of the pencil at the top of this list.
You can then mark outcomes you wish to include with a check mark, and click on the purple button in the upper right hand corner of the screen to “Apply Selection.”
Adding or Removing Courses from a Program Curriculum Map
Your program’s courses are listed across the top of your page from left to right. If your course list exceeds the display limit, you can navigate through them by clicking the arrows to the right.
If you need to add or remove courses from this list, click the icon of the pencil.
When the pencil icon is clicked, a fly-out to manage/include courses in the Curriculum Map will appear. You can enter all or part of a course code to search for matches.
You will then see any courses that are currently associated with the Program, along with an ’Include in Map’ toggle for each course. If a course is not included in the curriculum map, you can include it by moving that toggle to ‘Yes.’ If a course is included in the curriculum map, you can remove it by moving that toggle to ‘No’. You can also include/remove all courses with the “Include all” toggle.
Include Course in Curriculum Map fly-out
Align Outcomes to Courses
To affiliate an outcome with a course, first click on a cell where that outcome intersects with the desired course. This will open a new panel on the right.
Use the checkboxes in that right panel to choose to what degree an outcome is aligned to a course using the indicators, Introduce, Reinforce, and/or Master. You may select multiple indicators. As you check the boxes for these indicators, your Curriculum Map will update to reflect your alignment selections.
Add Assessment Measures
Your Curriculum Map also allows you to document assessment measures for outcomes that are associated with certain courses in the program.
Please Note: Measures created in a Curriculum Map will be added to any current or future Assessment Plans. Whether a Plan is "current" depends on the ACTUAL DATE the Measure is created, in relation to the Reporting Year the Plan is connected to. In other words, if the Measure is created on 09/01/24 and the institution's 2023-2024 Reporting Year ended on 08/31/24, then the Measure will NOT be added to any Plan connected to the 2023-2024 Reporting Year.
First, click on a cell where an outcome and course intersect. This will open a new panel on the right.
Click the ADD MEASURE button from this panel.
You will then see the following fields you can use to enter information about your measure: a dropdown menu to categorize the Method, and text response areas to enter a Title, Target, and Description. When you are finished, click ADD in the upper right hand corner of the page.
Your Measure will now appear in the right-hand panel, and will be included in future and current assessment Plans. This information will be displayed in the Reference column to the right of your Measure Title.
The inclusion of a Measure is indicated on the map with the "A" icon, signifying an "Assessment Activity".
Save and Close
Once you have finished mapping your outcomes, click either the Create button (if this is your first time working on a Curriculum Map) or the Save and Exit button (every time after the first) located in the upper right-hand corner of your page to close the window and save your changes. You may also close your Curriculum Map by clicking the X in the upper left-hand corner of the page to undo any content you have entered in your map.
