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Mission Statement

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Georgia Tech Strategic Plan Website

Our vision is bold: “Georgia Tech will define the technological research university of the 21st century and educate the leaders of a technologically driven world.”

Our mission is clear: “to provide the state of Georgia with the scientific and technological knowledge base, innovation, and workforce it needs to shape a prosperous and sustainable future and quality of life for its citizens.” It is achieved through educational excellence, innovative research, and outreach in selected areas of endeavor.

Georgia Tech’s mission in education and research will provide a setting for students to engage in multiple intellectual pursuits in an interdisciplinary fashion. Because of our distinction for providing a broad but rigorous education in the multiple aspects of technology, Georgia Tech seeks students with extraordinary motivation and ability and prepares them for lifelong learning, leadership, and service. As an institution with an exceptional faculty, an outstanding student body, a rigorous curriculum, and facilities that enable achievement, we are an intellectual community for all those seeking to become leaders in society.

Georgia Tech values its position as a leading public research university in the United States and understands full well its responsibility to advance society toward a proper, fair, and sustainable future. By seeking to develop beneficial partnerships within public and private sectors in education, research, and technology, Georgia Tech ensures relevance in all that it does and assures that the benefits of its discoveries are widely disseminated and used in society.

Georgia Tech pursues its mission by giving the highest respect to the personal and intellectual rights of everyone in our community. In return, we expect that all members of our community will conduct themselves with the highest ethical principles.

Office of Assessment Mission:

Consistent with the Institute mission of providing leadership, advancing innovation, providing an ethical and well-managed administration, and ensuring effective use of entrusted resources, the Office of Assessment at Georgia Tech exists to:

provide information and technical expertise to assist academic and other units at all levels in measuring and improving student learning and outcomes;
facilitate continuous improvement of academic and administrative processes at GT;
develop and disseminate best practices for enabling continuous organizational learning and development;
provide a focal point for the Institute’s accountability to stakeholders; and
accumulate, generate, maintain, communicate and disseminate institutional information to support assessment and general awareness of student learning.

Principles of the Office of Assessment:

The primary purpose for assessment at Georgia Tech is improving student learning and development. This is accomplished through improvements in program structure, course content, and pedagogy.
Assessment is concerned with group-level analysis rather than individual-level analysis. Therefore, assessment data will not be used for individual faculty, staff, or student evaluation, but rather the evaluation of educational programs and services.
The faculty, given their curricular roles and responsibilities, shall have primary responsibility for the development, implementation, and ongoing use of academic assessment activities.
Faculty members on the Institute Graduate Committee and the Institute Undergraduate Curriculum Committee shall evaluate the adequacy of academic program reviews with particular attention to adequacy of assessment processes and usage of results.
Assessment goals, objectives and strategies will be reflective of the priorities of the institution as expressed in the GT mission statement.
Assessment strategies will be integrated into the curriculum and will be integral to the learning processes of GT students.
Assessment methods used at GT will reflect best practices nationally; measures used will conform to high standards of validity and reliability
Assessment of programs will involve a multimethod (triangulated) approach.
Assessment at GT will involve professional development and training for faculty and staff involved.
Assessment goals/objectives at the course, curriculum, school, college or Institute level should be stated in terms that are amenable to observation and measurement.
Where most commonly utilized by schools, some assessment strategies may be conducted centrally from the Office of Assessment. In this event, strategies will be undertaken to minimize the cost and labor involved in collecting such data and to disaggregate assessment data collected to the school level to maximize its usage.
To be effective, faculty, staff and administrators must make appropriate usage of assessment results to improve courses, curricula, and/or services that impact student learning and development.
Georgia Tech has multiple “stakeholders”, groups who have a vested interest in the performance of the institution — students, faculty, administration, business and industry, the legislature, the local community, and several others — whose interests are overlapping but not identical. Assessment should concern itself with the points of view of these multiple stakeholders, should foster discussion of the impact of these interest groups on the mission of the Institute, and assessment methods selected should reflect the diversity of perspectives.
The development of an effective assessment program is iterative and long-term; several rounds of data collection will be necessary (1) to stabilize most assessment processes and (2) to build the longitudinal database for meaningful long-term trend studies.
The assessment program at GT will be regularly and continuously evaluated.

Goals of the Office of Assessment:

Updates are now in progress. This information will be coming soon.

Roles of the Office of Assessment:

to communicate with campus on our efforts, findings, and implications;
to seek input from students, faculty, staff and administrators, alumni and citizens on Georgia Tech’s realization of its mission;
to seek input from the campus on what assessment information will be most useful;
to consult with units on revising and updating assessment plans;
to conduct and maintain an inventory of assessment methods and practices at GT;
to centralize collection of assessment data where feasible;
to assure that program reviews are conducted; to provide counsel and guidance to the IGC and IUCC on evaluating those program reviews;
to promote best practices in assessment and faculty development in assessment methods;
to provide a web-based clearinghouse on assessment information for the campus;
to showcase outstanding assessment efforts at GT;
to work with principal investigators to develop assessment plans for innovative educational program proposals, and to assist in the implementation of those plans where funded; and
to work with The University of Georgia System, other institutions of higher education, state and federal agencies, boards and commissions, and other external associations and entities.
to facilitate an understanding of the effect of educational technologies on student learning at GT.