- Course grades and grade distributions
- Assignment grades, if not accompanied by a rubric or scoring criteria
- Retention and graduation rates
- For four-year programs, admission rates into graduate programs and graduation rates from those programs
- For two-year programs, admission rates into four-year colleges and graduation rates from those programs
- Scores on tests required for further study (such as Graduate Record Examinations) that evaluate skills learned over a lifetime
- Quality and reputation of graduate and four-year programs into which alumni are accepted
- Placement rates of graduates into appropriate career positions and starting salaries
- Alumni perceptions of their career responsibilities and satisfaction
- Student ratings of their knowledge and skills and reflections on what they have learned over the course of the program
- Questions on end-of-course student evaluation forms that ask about the course rather than the instructor
- Student, alumni, and employer satisfaction with learning, collected through surveys, exit interviews, or focus groups
- Voluntary gifts from alumni and employers
- Student participation rates in faculty research, publications, and conference presentations
- Honors, awards, and scholarships earned by students and alumni
(Excerpted from Suskie, Assessing Student Learning: A Common Sense Guide (2nd edition; 2009). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.)