Assessment Strategist

Assessment Strategist

If you're passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you're committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Faculty 508 Pay Range: $86,000.00 - $129,000.00

Job Description

Reporting to the respective school's Director of Assessment and Curriculum, the Assessment Strategist guides and supports the strategy, design, development, and maintenance of formative and high-stakes assessments within an assigned portfolio. This position collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure assessments meet the goals of the university and that assessment best practices have been followed. The Assessment Strategist oversees the full lifecycle for an assigned portfolio of assessment products, ensuring alignment with assessment integrity policies. This position manages assessment design, development, and continuous improvement efforts for WGU's online assessment content. The Assessment Strategist collaborates with critical stakeholders in academics, evaluation, and others to provide input about potential changes to the assessment or related technologies.

This is an on-site position located at our headquarters, 4001 South 700 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84107. You would work a hybrid schedule in the office 4 days a week, with 1 day remote.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities:

• Ensures alignment of assessments with best practices in competency-based education model and WGU assessment integrity policies.
• Provides thought leadership and strategic vision for the continuous improvement of student outcomes and overall health and quality of assessments.
• Ensures alignment of assessment traverse with proficiencies, skills and competencies in programs, courses, and non-degree offerings.
• Translates requirements into clearly defined specifications and actions.
• Contributes to models for formative and summative assessments.
• Collaborates with internal and external partners throughout the design, development, and deployment of assessments.
• Collaborates with the technology, design, and development teams to ensure the creation and adoption of flexible, valid, reliable, data-driven assessment tools.
• As required, provides training, consultation, or guidance to team members and partners on assessment models, assessment design and development practices, and data-driven, evidence-based practices in assessment.
• Consults with Program Development and Psychometrics teams on scoring methods, rubric development, and other assessment tools and models.
• Collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders to explore and determine innovations and improvements to the existing student experience and processes based on data, key performance indicators, current practice, and emerging trends.
• Collaborates with peers across colleges to ensure continuity of process and strategy for assessments.
• Monitors assessment portfolio health across the assessment lifecycle.
• Achieves and reports on critical assessment metrics.
• Provides student-facing responses to student appeals.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skill and Abilities:

• Demonstrated technical knowledge of high-stakes assessment development practices
• Demonstrated ability to proactively and creatively solve problems related to assessment design and development
• Practical understanding of teaching and learning, educational trends and research
• Demonstrated skill in providing training as well as persuasively explaining complex assessment policy and best practices
• Proven ability to analyze data to identify trends and drive improvement
• Ability to build relationships and work effectively in a highly matrixed organization
• Excellent organizational and project management skills, including the ability to effectively handle multiple tasks and pay attention to detail

Job Qualifications:

• Minimum Qualifications:
• Master's degree in a relevant field
• 3 years of relevant professional experience developing high-stakes educational or licensure assessments at the course or program level.
• Experience with contemporary assessment practices and technology (e.g., adaptive assessment, competency-based assessment, psychometrics, technology-enhanced items, prototyping and validating new item types, test designs, etc.).
• Experience facilitating workshops.
• Physical Requirements:
• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.
• This position requires occasional travel of up to 20%, including required attendance at designated company summits (typically one to two per year). Additional travel may include conferences, visits to company locations, and other business-related events as needed. Additional travel may be assigned as needed to support business requirements.