STEPS Success Stories
STEPS software has helped solve program assessment problems at institutions across the country.
“Before we started using the STEPS system in Fall 2004 for our Teaching Performance Assessment, we had boxes and boxes of paper responses from students. It was a nightmare trying to sort them, assign to faculty evaluators, log scores, and assess data. This process took many hours better spent on other important projects. “STEPS has provided a paperless system that is easy to use. I simply log on, release student work and assign to faculty evaluators. They, in turn, log on and score the response. At the end of the scoring period, I provide the spreadsheet, generated by STEPS, to the assessment team. The STEPS support team is also great.”
Debbie Vermette
Administrative Support Coordinator
Department of Education
California State University, Chico
“The STEPS program is allowing us to centralize and refine our assessment process. Although we are in the beginning stages of utilizing and learning the STEPS program, there seems to be great potential. It allows our program to centralize student assignments, multiple graders, professors and grading processes in one place maintained by the College. I have been experimenting with the data output, and it will allow us to transfer data to Excel and SPSS for assessment analyses.”
Mila Warren, MA
Assessment Coordinator
Cal State Fullerton
College of Business and Economics
The University of Houston-Downtown was a beta test site for STEPS.
"The STEPS package has too many benefits to truly enumerate, but one extraordinary benefit of the STEPS package should not be missed. By automating this process of assessment, valuable University resources are made available to focus on the continuous improvement requirements that will be a forthcoming expectation of future accrediting audits. The STEPS package is a very beneficial and powerful package of which any University undergoing accreditation audits should take advantage. I believe this system can provide a significant advantage to any university implementing an assessment process."
Gary L. Stading, Ph.D.
Chair of the AACSB Assessment Committee
University of Houston - Downtown
Wichita State University started using STEPS within a month of training. They currently have 13 courses set-up for assessing papers and presentations.
“We just picked up STEPS to track our assessments of student learning in oral and written communications. We had several faculty pilot-test it last fall, and they were quite happy with it. It takes some time on the part of the assessment coordinator to get it set up, but the faculty time to record assessment data is very minimal (the main reason we picked it - we do a lot of assessments of communication skills), and it automates collecting assessment data very well. I'd give them a look if you're looking for something to help you track assessment.”
Dr. Jim Clark
Associate Dean
W. Frank Barton School of Business
Wichita State University