Using EAC’s Goal Manager for Rubric and Exam Alignments

When to Use?

The EAC Visual Data tool has a Goals Manager area that allows instructors and assessment teams to view the existing alignment of goals to rubric rows or test questions in the EAC tool. Instructors and Assessment teams can Edit, Add, or Remove alignments to the rubric rows or test questions.

Procedure

The EAC Visual Data tool has a Goals Manager area that allows instructors and assessment teams to view the existing alignment of goals to rubric rows or individual questions and to Edit, Add, or Remove alignments to rubric rows or individual questions.

NOTE: Goal alignments are typically reserved for accreditation purposes. Contact you Department coordinator/chair before making any Goal Alignments.

Any changes made to goal alignments through EAC’s Goals Manager will be pushed ONLY to the rubrics or exams in the Blackboard course(s) that were in the EAC report. When the course is copied again, the corrected version of the goal alignments made to the rubric and/or test will be copied into the next course shell.

Best Practice: Goal alignments to content, activities, rubric rows, and individual test questions should be made at the course level to ensure that the Goal and the row criterion or question content are in alignment.

To Add a Goal, follow these steps:

1. Login to Blackboard and in the Ultra Base Navigation menu select the Tools page.

2. On the Tools page click on the EAC Visual Data link that now appears in the list.

3. A new browser tab will open with the EAC user interface.

4. Enter the name of your rubric into the Item Name – Course field, then, in the date fields, enter a date range for when the rubric was scored and click the “GO” button. Review the list of displayed rubrics and check the box next to the rubric or exam you want to view. Click on the rubric’s name to open its EAC report.

5. Once the Report opens, on the left side panel is a menu. You may need to scroll down the page to see the entire menu. At the bottom of the menu is the Goals Manager link. Click on the Goals Manager link.

6. The Goals Manager will open inside the EAC Tool. On the left side is the list of available Goals from the Blackboard Goals area (highlighted in yellow). On the right side is the current BLUEPRINT of the rubric or exam. The example below is for a Rubric Blueprint. The rubric row criterion are highlighted in pink and the currently aligned goals are in the purple box.

7. To Add or Remove a Goal alignment, first locate the Goal Set in the left side Goals Area. There are two ways to locate the Goal Category. The second option is best once you know the Goal Set ID you need and when you have a long list of individual goals to search.

Option 1:  Scroll and Expand the Goals list ‐ Using the Scroll bar (#1), scroll down the list until you find the Goal Set you need.  The list is a drill down from the Colleges and Schools to the Programs that live underneath them. You may need to expand the higher Goal set using the down arrow to expose the Program or Accreditor Goals you need (#2).

Option 2:  Search by Goal ID Key Identifier – At the top of the Goals area, locate the Search field.

Enter a partial identifier from the Goal ID for the Goal Set. Recommended practice is to enter the Program’s name (ex:  Engineering, Computing, English, etc.) or the Program’s code (ex:  EGR for Engineering, ENGL for English, MSN for Masters in Nursing, etc.) to find the Goals.

EAC will locate the Goal set and the Goals with the key identifier. Next use the down arrow to expand the Goal Set to the individual goals available to you or the goals will be opened for you if you use the Program Identifier, and it is the ID used in the Goal ID code.

8. Once you have located the Goal Set:

• Check the box next to the Goal or Goals you want to Add (#1) to a rubric row or test question. You can select more than 1 goal in the list to add to the specific rubric row or test question checked in the right-side Blueprint.
• Next, check the box for the row in the Rubric Blueprint (#2).
• Click on the PLUS option at the top of the Goals Area to add the goal (#3). EAC will ADD the new goal to the selected row.

• IMPORTANT – Deselect the Goal’s and Rubric Row Check box so you don’t accidentally align the goal to another row or a new goal to this row.

To Remove a Goal, follow these steps:

9. In the Blueprint area, locate the Rubric row from which you want to remove a goal. Check the box for that rubric row. (#1). Next, search for the Goal in the Goals area by scrolling the list or searching by the Goal ID. Check the box for that Goal. (#2). Then click on the Minus sign. (#3).

10. To close out of the Goals Manager and return to the EAC report, click on the X in the upper right hand corner.

11. After changes are made to the Goal Alignments, the data in the Goals Summary, Student Goals, Full Excel file and PDF Reports will all be updated.
12. IMPORTANT REMINDER:  All goal alignment changes in the Goals Manager will be pushed to the courses in the EAC report and updated in the Learn Ultra courses. To view these courses, click on the Courses included in the EAC left side menu:

The process for adding and removing goal alignments to test questions is the same process as adding / removing for rubric rows. The goals are aligned by question.