Outcomes assessment provides an additional set of tools that allow privileged users to collect samples of student work that can be used for both institutional and program assessment activities. The tools related to outcomes assessment—goals, rubrics, and enterprise surveys—are integrated into the assessment experience to empower evidence-based decision making for your institution.

In the Original experience, users who are given the assessment manager role have access to the Outcomes Assessment tab and its tools. Access to other tools can be provided at a more granular level to ensure that the right staff members have access to the right information and tools.

Accessing Outcomes Assessment
Outcomes Assessment TabMy Institution TabAdmin TabUltra Tools Page
Users with the assessment manager role have access to the Outcomes Assessment tab and the full integrated experience.Users with targeted access can access the specific Outcomes Assessment tool from the Tools panel on the My Institution tab, if that tool has been made available.System administrators can access any or all tools from the Administrator Panel.In the Ultra experience, system administrators and other privileged users can access the Tools page and then select Goals.

Outcomes assessment roles

Access to the tools within the integrated outcomes assessment experience is controlled by role-based privileges. Users can be granted the right to perform an action within the system because they have a particular role that includes the privilege to take that action.

Blackboard Learn ships with a set of default roles that are described in this table. The system administrator can create specific roles for users that grant or remove specific privileges to match a user's professional responsibilities to outcomes assessment privileges.

Role descriptions
RolePrivileges
System administratorAdministers outcomes assessment through the Administrator Panel. Automatically has access to all objects and data in Blackboard Learn. Adds and removes users and assigns user roles.
Assessment managerHas access to all of the tools included in the integrated experience for outcomes assessment including goals, evidence collection, rubrics, and enterprise surveys. The assessment manager can create and edit objects within any of these tools.
Goals managerHas access to the Goals tool within Blackboard Learn and can create and manage goals for the institution. This user doesn't have access to collect evidence related to these goals.
Rubrics managerHas access to the System Rubrics tool and the ability to create rubrics that are used to evaluate collected evidence.
Survey authorHas access to the Enterprise Survey tool and can create, deploy, and analyze surveys across the institution.

Multiple roles or independent and additive roles

These roles are system roles that you can assign to any user. A user can have more than one system role so you can provide exactly the right type of access needed for each user. When you assign multiple roles to a user, the permissions they're granted are additive. For example, someone with the roles of rubrics manager and survey author can create and manage rubrics in the system as well as create, send, and analyze surveys. Only the system administrator can assign roles to users.

Roles in institutional hierarchy

If your role is associated with institutional hierarchy nodes, you will only have permissions to collect evidence from those nodes which you are associated with. You can view more information on managing institutional hierarchy nodes. Use your browser's back function to return here.

Remove roles

Only roles created by the system administrator can be removed. You can't remove roles that are shipped with outcomes assessment. If a user has only one role and that role is removed from the system, the user loses all outcomes assessment privileges.