Sheridan College

Overview

Sheridan College, in the Northern Wyoming Community College District, needed to prepare for an HLC accreditation Open Pathway Year 4 assurance review as part of their 10-year accreditation cycle. The purpose of the Year 4 self-assessment is to allow the college to reflect on its accreditation compliance and to self-check progress toward meeting self-identified and HLC-identified quality improvement goals. The assurance review also provides an opportunity for the college to plan for making and documenting the required improvements before the next accreditation review in Year 9. One identified academic area of focus for the college was improving its curriculum mapping. Sheridan’s first step was to conduct an extensive product search for curriculum mapping tools that would help them now and in the future. Drawing on the success of a previous partnership with WIDS 15 years ago, the college contacted us and requested our software to aid in their mapping project.

The Challenge

Sheridan’s previous accreditation visit was a positive success. However, the college wanted to remain proactive and continue to progress with its improvement processes. Sheridan also wanted a tool that would enable faculty and staff to support this specific improvement goal. In preparation for an upcoming accreditation review, Sheridan wanted to focus on curriculum mapping and assessment of Institutional Learning Outcomes (ILOs) and program-level outcomes to increase student learning success.

The WIDS Solution

Through a comprehensive review of curriculum software tools that would support the varied needs for meeting their curriculum goals, Sheridan confirmed that WIDS’s software, once again, met all their criteria. The WIDS software was easy to use, affordable, and met their curriculum mapping goal needs., The college also discovered WIDS bonus features including a syllabus tool that places critical college-wide course-level information on syllabi while also including course-level curriculum mapping details. Further, Sheridan discovered the WIDS Outcome Assessment Planning and Analysis feature will be useful for potential future assessment-related initiatives.

After implementing WIDS at the college, Sheridan WIDS support to quickly upload their current course information to the software. A WIDS consultant then trained Sheridan College WIDS site administrators to use the software. The training included curriculum mapping features for immediate use and more advanced features such as Program Assessment Planning and Analysis that will support the overall quality improvement goals in the near future.

The Result

WIDS quickly uploaded Sheridan’s detailed course-level information into the software, created a custom field to move the college toward efficient curriculum mapping, and assisted the college WIDS site administrators with populating the program-level fields. Then, college WIDS site administrators presented the software implementation related to Sheridan’s goals to academic leadership and faculty at fall convocation activities. Previously, many college personnel couldn’t verify current course versions, locate the most recent syllabi, or, most critically, for the HLC accreditation goals, identify how course-level learning outcomes were mapped to and supported program-level student learning. The Registrar’s office is excited about the product, as WIDS now provides Sheridan with a source of truth for course information, outcomes, mapped curriculum, and easily accessible syllabi.