Using assessment to enhance the Digital Arts certificate program’s capstone experience

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Digital Arts certificate program in Penn State's College of Arts and Architecture continues to strengthen its capstone experience through course revision, sustained review of student portfolios, and ongoing refinements to instruction. Through the program learning assessment process, faculty evaluated student learning tied to a program learning objective (PLO) focused on students’ ability to conduct professional research that blends art theory and practice with the latest web-based technologies. PLOs describe what students should know and be able to do by the end of a program.

At Penn State, all undergraduate, graduate, and for-credit certificate programs are required to assess how well students achieve key PLOs. Each year, programs identify at least one PLO to assess, collect, and analyze data, and use the findings to inform changes in pedagogy, curriculum, instruction, student support, or assessment methods. This process helps ensure students gain the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to succeed in and beyond the classroom.

Incremental refinements strengthen research and reflection

The Digital Arts certificate culminates in DART 412: Portfolio Design and Professional Practices. In this capstone course, students apply technical, conceptual, and research skills developed throughout the program to produce a final body of work grounded in original research and personal exploration. Portfolios are evaluated using an analytic rubric aligned with the professional, creative research PLO.

According to Anna Divinsky, associate teaching professor of integrative arts and Digital Arts certificate and Digital Multimedia Design program coordinator, the program has made targeted refinements to DART 412 over several assessment cycles to enhance students’ professional research skills.

“We have focused on making incremental changes over the last few assessment cycles with the goal of strengthening students’ professional research, creative, and technical skills in the digital arts,” Divinsky said. “We introduced reflective questions in the capstone to better understand students’ progress and identify ways to improve their learning experience. We also collect feedback through a mid-course survey, an end-of-program survey, and a final reflection statement, and we use that input to guide program improvements.”

Strong performance sustained during instructional transition

Student performance remained consistently strong, even during instructional transitions — including the departure of a long-serving capstone instructor in fall 2024.

"Cookie Redding, the current DART 412 instructor, maintained the established course structure during the transition while continuing to gather feedback through surveys and reflective statements," Divinsky shared. "She has diligently worked with the students to support their technical and creative development in the capstone, utilizing their feedback to continue improving the course and their learning experience in the certificate.

"The main change Redding made to the capstone assignment was shifting it from a standalone project with an accompanying written analysis to a semester-long process that integrates creative development with professional practice," Divinsky added. "This new approach has significantly improved students' abilities and overall knowledge in the program. Additionally, she revised the rubric to better assess student work, namely broadening the rubric to capture students’ ability to present their creative work professionally to an audience."

Redding said, “Changes to the capstone project and grading rubric improved the quality of student work, making their submissions more versatile and cumulative, reflecting the knowledge they gained throughout the program. The capstone experience gave students an opportunity to synthesize the skills they developed throughout the certificate program while articulating the artistic choices and influences in their work.”

She also observed that expanded opportunities for reflection and feedback have positively influenced student engagement and portfolio development, exemplified by the exceptional DART 412 Capstone Project, a DMD Zine, created by Andrea Barolo.

According to Divinsky, “These reflective components, introduced as part of earlier action plans, have provided valuable insight into students’ learning experiences and artistic growth.”

Looking ahead, the program plans to refine rubric language to provide clearer performance descriptors and continue offering structured opportunities for students to share feedback throughout the capstone experience. “Incorporating annual feedback from Penn State’s Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research (OPAIR) and developing a five-year plan has been very helpful in strengthening our PLOs. We look forward to exploring new ways to improve the program and learning from this assessment process,” Divinsky said.

About program learning assessment at Penn State

The assessment success stories featured in this series highlight how Penn State programs are using assessment findings to improve student learning. These stories typically involve a full cycle of assessment: identifying an area for change, implementing an action plan and reassessing a program learning objective to see whether there’s evidence that the change or changes made a difference. This process plays a central role in Penn State’s commitment to continuous academic improvement and is commonly referred to as “closing the loop.”

Visit this link for more information about the program learning assessment process, or email assessment@psu.edu with any questions.