Associate learning outcomes with your assessments

Once your outcomes are added to your course, and your achievement scale and threshold are selected, you are ready to associate them with assessments.

Align Outcomes to Assignments

You can align an outcome to your assignment following these instructions.  You can also align outcomes criteria in a rubric. 

You can align an outcome to your assignment as a whole, while creating the assignment or by editing an assignment.

1. In the Assignments tool, click New Assignment or click the contextual arrow to the right of an existing assignment’s name and select Edit Assignment.

2. Click Outcomes.

3. Scroll through the list of outcomes and select the appropriate outcome(s) for this assignment by clicking in the box beside the outcome. You can also use the Search bar at the top to search by keyword.
4. Click Save.

An outcome tag (the Short Code of the outcome (if it exists) or the first few words of the outcome) for each of the selected outcomes will appear below Outcomes. You can hover over the tag to view the entire outcome definition. Students will be able to view the tags and outcomes in the same way when they open the assignment to make a submission.

5. To add more outcomes, click the Browse Learning Outcomes icon (plus sign) to the right of the existing outcomes.

6. Complete the creation or editing of your assignment and click Save and Close.

Note: There is no icon in the Assignments list page to indicate that a learning outcome has been aligned to this assignment.

 

Align Outcomes to Quiz Questions

You can align outcomes to individual quiz questions, but not to a quiz as a whole, at this time.

You can add outcomes to your quiz questions while creating the quiz or by editing a quiz.

1. In the Quizzes tool, click New Quiz or click the contextual arrow to the right of an existing quiz’s name and select Edit.

2. Add quiz questions, if none exist. If your questions are already in the quiz, skip to the next step.
3. Click the box to the left of a quiz question to select it. Once you have selected a question, the More Actions button will become clickable.
4. Click More Actions and select Align to Outcomes.
   

5. If this question was imported from the Question Library or is shared with other quizzes, you will see a confirmation pop-up.
   Note: If you align a learning outcome to the question here, the learning outcome will be aligned with the question everywhere it appears.
   Click Continue.
   

6. Scroll through the list of outcomes and select the appropriate outcome(s) by clicking in the box beside the outcome. You can also use the Search bar at the top to search by keyword.
7. Click Save.
   

 
An outcome tag (the Short Code of the outcome (if it exists) or the first few words of the outcome) for each of the selected outcomes will appear below the question.

8. To align more outcomes to this question, repeat steps 3 to 7.
9. You can continue to add outcomes to any of the questions.
   You can also align learning outcomes to question pools. If you align a question pool to an outcome, all questions in that pool are aligned in all incidences of the question inside and outside the question pool. Use this option carefully.
10. Once you have completed setting up or editing your quiz, click Save and Close.
    Notes:

• There will be no icon on the Quizzes list page to indicate a learning outcome has been aligned to questions in this quiz.
• The outcome tag will not appear in the Question Library beside any of the questions that have outcomes aligned. However, if those questions are imported into another quiz, the outcomes will be aligned to them.
• Students do not see learning outcomes in quizzes at any time. Once results are published, students can see their learning outcomes achievement levels in the Class Progress tool.

Align Outcomes to Discussion Topics

You can add outcomes to a Discussion Topic while creating the discussion topic or by editing an existing one. Outcomes are not added at the Forum or Thread level.

1. In the Discussions tool, click the contextual arrow to the right of an existing discussion topic’s name and select Edit Topic, or click New and select New Topic.
   

2. Click Outcomes.
   

3. Scroll through the list of outcomes and select the appropriate outcome(s) for the topic by clicking in the box beside the outcome. You can also use the Search bar at the top to search by keyword.
4. Click Save.
   

An outcome tag (the Short Code of the outcome (if it exists) or the first few words of the outcome) for each of the selected outcomes will appear. You can hover over the tag to view the entire outcome definition. Students will be able to view the tags and outcomes in the same way when they view the discussion topic.

5. To align more outcomes to this discussion topic, click the Browse Learning Outcomes icon (plus sign) to the right of the existing outcomes.

6. Once you have completed setting up or editing your discussion topic, click Save and Close.
   Note: There is no icon in the Discussions list page to indicate a learning outcome is aligned to this discussion topic.

Note: you must either link the discussion topic to a grade item, or use a rubric to evaluate, to be able to assess the learning outcome.
 

Align Learning Outcomes to Rubric Criteria

Rubrics are used to evaluate an activity or item based on a predefined set of criteria. They help ensure that activities and items are evaluated fairly and consistently.

You can align learning outcomes to rubric criteria, enabling you to demonstrate how assessment criteria map to a student's demonstration of learning outcomes in a discussion topic or assignment. For students, this makes it easier to understand their progress against a learning outcome and locate areas for improvement.

In Rubrics, you align outcomes to the rubric criterion rows. Then add the rubric to the assignment or discussion. When that rubric is used for evaluation, those associated outcomes are automatically evaluated.

Before aligning learning outcomes, you must have your learning outcomes set up in your course and have selected the achievement scale and achievement threshold for your course.
 

1. In the Navbar, click on Course Tools > Course Admin. Then, select Rubrics.

2. Do one of the following:
   • Click New Rubric and create a new rubric and add criteria.
   • Click the arrow to the right of an existing rubric that has not yet been used in evaluating student work and select Edit.

3. For the criterion for which you want to align an outcome, click Outcomes.

4. On the Browse Learning Outcomes dialog box, expand any parent outcomes to view the child outcomes, if needed, then select the outcome(s) you want to align and click Save. The added outcomes appear below the criterion, tagged with the information about the outcomes. The rubric’s changes are automatically saved.

5. To see the full text of the outcome, hover over the outcome tag.

6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 to align learning outcomes to any other criteria.
7. Click Close.  You have aligned selected learning outcomes to your rubric success criteria. You can now add your rubric to your assignment.

Note: It is ideal to have a rubric that has the same levels as the achievement scale levels. If that is not possible, the system converts the rubric levels to the achievement scale for you, or you can manually adjust the achievement scale levels mapped to the rubrics. To learn more about how various scenarios are dealt with, see Mapping levels of achievement to rubric evaluation levels.