How is Skillways Used?

Overview

If you have ever tried to pull outcome data from an LMS, you have likely found it to be rather limiting. Your typical LMS will offer tools for assessing learning activities such as rubrics and tracking outcomes at the course level, but when it comes to tracking outcomes across courses or at the program level, they fall short.

Comprehensive outcome mapping can be plotted in Skillways and used to track learner performance and analyze data at the program, course, and individual learner levels. This insight allows you to validate outcomes with evidence and fosters feedback on how to improve and enhance courses and curricula continuously.

The added benefit of designing in Skillways is the mapping and analytics that show how students meet outcomes and competencies in their courses.

So, how does the mapping work? Is it something I can just plug into another LMS like Canvas or Blackboard?

These are really important questions. Here’s what you need to know:

• The mapping in Skillways is not a plug-in or an add-on. The analytics that are generated come from the mapping of the outcomes to actual activities.
• The activities must be created within Skillways or by using a third-party tool integrated into the platform such as YellowDig or Learnosity.
• It is important to note that Skillways is enabled so you can build Learning Paths and Curriculum Maps independently with or without associating them to each other. For example, you may use the Curriculum Mapping tool independently to create and manage curriculum maps and visualize outcomes’ alignment. You can then export them as a PDF to document the map internally and share.

The following are some use cases to illustrate how Skillways can be used: 

Use Case 1: 

Students enrolled in Master of Engineering programs across the country are required to meet established industry competencies to graduate. Universities offering these programs need to provide evidence related to student performance and achievement of these competencies.

How can Skillways Help?

By using Skillways, universities can map learning outcomes to course and program outcomes and associate activities, skills, and competencies. The data and analytics can then be exported into customizable reports to provide evidence of students’ mastery level in achieving those competencies or outcomes.

Use Case 2:

Students enrolled in a Master of Public Administration program are struggling to meet a specific program outcome. The dean of the department wants to easily target how that program outcome is being addressed across courses and how to enhance the curriculum for improved student performance.

How can Skillways Help?

Using Skillways’ progress analytics feature, universities can see how learners are doing across a program on meeting certain skills or competencies, which outcomes learners are struggling with, and which learning activities are proving successful in helping learners achieve outcomes. By being able to drill down to view activities associated with certain outcomes or skills, universities/instructors can easily target activities that might be failing to “teach” a given competency or outcome and address how to improve or supplement those activities.