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VSA College Portrait

The Voluntary System of Accountability (VSA) project is a collaborative effort among the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), and the public higher education community. In addition to increasing accountability of participating institutions, the VSA will improve public understanding of how public colleges and universities operate. Details regarding institutions’ consumer information, student experiences and perceptions, and student learning outcomes are communicated through the VSA website on a College Portrait template. The primary audience for College Portraitis prospective students and their families. Secondary audiences include governing board members, legislators, policy-makers, education agency administrators, and institutional faculty and staff.  For more information about the VSA, visit:  http://www.voluntarysystem.org/index.cfm.  To view Youngstown State University’s College Portrait, visit:  http://www.ysu.edu/institutional-research/ysuvsa0809.pdf.
 
The focus of VSA is on how an institution as a whole contributes to student development.  The Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) makes this possible by looking at the institution as the primary unit of analysis.  It is administered at both the freshmen and senior levels to get the most accurate measure of gains.  The CLA focuses on the value added of colleges and universities by comparing what students know when they start college with what they know when they finish.  This allows actual learning that occurred while in college to be assessed. It also allows for inter-institutional comparisons of value added by examining whether the improvement in average student performance is in line with the gains of students at comparable institutions. Additionally, CLA results can be combined with institutional data to determine the factors that promote student learning and growth within a given institution.  For more information on the benefits and uses of the CLA, visit: http://www.cae.org/content/pro_collegiate_benefits.htm.
 
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