Assessment

AACSB Accreditation

The College is externally accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the world’s oldest and most renowned business school accreditation organization. Jabs is one of nearly 1,000 AACSB accredited colleges worldwide.

The business college first earned AACSB accreditation in 1981 and has maintained its status ever since. During the last academic year (2022-2023), a peer review team visited the Jabs College, analyzed a report produced by business school administrators and met with faculty, staff, students and community members before recommending another five years of accreditation, which was announced this summer.

Assessment Structure

An Assistant Dean for Academic affairs and Assurance of Learning (AoL) position was created in 2019 to oversee assessment and ensure Jabs maintains an ongoing systematic approach to the AoL process. The Assistant Dean is responsible for launching the designated assessment phase for each program goal and facilitating a curriculum mapping exercise every three years to ensure alignment with program goals. It is the responsibility of the Assistant Dean to formalize task forces to analyze assessment data and recommend programmatic curriculum changes. The assigned task forces are viewed as an essential element of the AoL process, ensuring that the process encompasses faculty participation and that program curriculum changes are faculty driven. The task forces typically consist of tenure track and non-tenure track faculty members with an interest in the specific learning objectives. The Assistant Dean chairs these task forces but does not drive curricular improvement suggestions. The Assistant Dean also performs all administrative tasks associated with AoL to include record keeping, managing data collection, and sharing assessment data with Jabs Leadership Team, Jabs Academic Council, and faculty at large. The Assistant Dean participated in both AACSB AoL Seminars in fall of 2019 and began the process of reviewing the existing Jabs assessment process.

Assessment Process Review

In fall of 2019 college’s program learning outcomes (PLO) to 1) were remapped onto the course offerings determine where students acquire skills and/or knowledge and ensure all PLOs map to the college’s mission statement and strategic plan (83.7% response rate). If a course was offered by three or more instructors, each instructor completed the form individually and then compared markings with their respective colleagues. If a PLO assessment discrepancy was realized, instructors met to discuss whether the course PLO, is, is not, can be, or should be formally included in the course.

Outcomes from these efforts resulted in the following improvements to the AoL process/practices:

1. Transitioned from holistic rubrics to analytic rubrics.

2. Created an assessment schedule to ensure each learning goal is assessed twice in a five-year period.

3. Increased Assessment Threshold Values.

Assessment Status of Learning Goals

The faculty continued to assess student learning while the process was under review. As previously noted, however, disruptions from the COVID pandemic delayed the assessment of the learning goals by one year (excluding knowledge of business).

The College established the following learning outcomes, goals and objectives for each of the learning goals listed in its mission statement:

Past Assessment Plan

Jabs Assessment Plan 2015-2017 (undergraduate)

Questions?

The College’s annual Assessment Reports are on file with the Provost’s Office. You may also contact the Jabs Dean's Office, JJCBEDeansOffice@montana.edu.