Web & User Experience

• Certificates

  Students completing the Web Essentials Certificate will:

  • Possess effective business communication skills.
  • Possess knowledge and skills of technology.
  • Implement effective decision-making and problem-solving skills.
  • Possess knowledge of ethics and professionalism.
  • Produce industry-standard websites and multimedia projects 

   

  Students completing the User Experience Design Certificate will have:

  • Possess effective business communication skills.
  • Possess knowledge and skills of technology.
  • Implement effective decision-making and problem-solving skills.
  • Possess knowledge of ethics and professionalism.
  • Produce industry-standard websites and multimedia projects 
• Associate Degrees

  Students completing the Associate of Applied Science in Web and User Experience will:

  • Possess effective business communication skills.
  • Possess knowledge and skills of technology.
  • Implement effective decision-making and problem-solving skills.
  • Possess knowledge of ethics and professionalism.
  • Produce industry-standard websites and multimedia projects 

   

• Bachelor Degree

  Students completing the Bachelor of Science in Web and User Experience: Full Stack Web Development, and Web and User Experience: User Experience Design degrees will:

  • Possess effective business communication skills.
  • Possess knowledge and skills of technology.
  • Implement effective decision-making and problem-solving skills.
  • Possess knowledge of ethics and professionalism.
  • Produce industry-standard websites and multimedia projects 

The Web and User Experience program is located within the School of Computing Department at Weber State University (WSU). Students have the following degree options: 

• Bachelor of Science in Web and User Experience: Full Stack Web Development Emphasis
• Bachelor of Science in Web and User Experience: User Experience Design Emphasis
• Associate of Applied Science in Web and User Experience 
• Minor in Web Technology 
• Minor in User Experience Design 
• Emphasis in Bachelor of Integrated Studies (BIS)

Students completing a major in Web and User Experience are prepared to work independently or as part of a team in an organization. Graduates have found employment as web designers; full-stack, front-end, and/or back-end web developers; UX designers, and user researchers.  Students learn a variety of web development and user experience design skills, including programming, database, multimedia technologies, user experience principles, web accessibility, information architecture, and user research methods. Elective coursework covers various programs and technologies relating to graphics, multimedia, and user experience. Students also gain competence in business communication and marketing, which are crucial elements for a successful business career. Students are also introduced to new management procedures for both people and technology to help meet the challenges of the ever-changing business environment.

Contact information:
Abdulmalek Al-Gahmi, Ph.D.
Phone: 801-395-3340
Email: aalgahmi@weber.edu
 

The following three steps outline the Web and User Experience assessment process:

1. Following the above schedule, course assessment subcommittees will convene during the assigned year to review the effectiveness of course delivery in achieving department objectives and to establish a Course Assessment Plan.  The Plan includes summary evidence of how the course currently satisfies the department’s student learning outcomes, investigating specific assessment instruments, the associated learning outcomes, and resulting class performance. Evidence of learning for a specific student learning outcome is deemed successful if the associated assessment measure is 80% or above.

• a. In addition, the source assessment subcommittees will list recommendations for course improvement to address any deficiencies in meeting applicable student learning outcomes.

2. Program recommendations will be compiled by Spring semester and submitted for approval by both WEB Faculty and WEB Industry Advisory Council, effectively closing the loop and thus engaging department action toward addressing deficiencies in achieving student learning outcomes.

3. Recommendations for improvement will be implemented during the subsequent year. An evaluation of the implementation of course improvements will indicate if the course should be reassessed immediately or if the regular course assessment cycle may be resumed.

Additional Information:   
Since 2017 the program has been going through constant change. We believe with the changes taking effect this Fall 2021, that the program has reached a stable point and we can now go back and look at how we collect data and better assess the program. This effort has been scheduled to start in Spring 2022.
 

• 2021-2022

  1)    Review and comment on the trend of minority students enrolling in your classes (particularly lower-division, GEN Ed) and in your programs. 

  We are happy to report that for the past 10 years, 43% of our students have been females. We continue to work on getting that number up and supporting our female students. Our non-white student percent took a dive because of COVID but we are seeing it going up again. We will continue to monitor these numbers.

  2)    What support (from enrollment services, advising, first-year transition office, access & diversity, etc.) do you need to help you recruit and retain students?

  We are working closely with the department and college academic advisors to connect more frequently with students. We are also working on a marketing campaign starting in Spring 2022 to raise awareness of our new emphases and certificate and recruit more students. We work closely with our Industry Advisory Committee on this campaign.

  3)    We have invited you to re-think your program assessment. What strategies are you considering? What support or help would you like?

  In Spring 2022, the faculty are scheduled to meet and reevaluate program assessment. We will be looking at how other similar programs are doing their assessment, at what points should we collect data; what kind of data to collect, and what existing courses/structures we can use.

  4)    Finally, we are supporting our Concurrent Enrollment accreditation process. Does your program offer concurrent enrollment classes? If so, have you been able to submit the information requested from the Concurrent Enrollment office? Staff from OIE will reach out to you in the next few months to assist in finalizing that data submission as well as gather information for concurrent Gen Ed assessment.

  We have two concurrent enrollment courses that we work with the Concurrent Enrollment Office on: WEB 1400 and WEB 1700. In both courses, we have been communicating with teachers and making resources available to them. We are also working with the Concurrent Enrollment Office to help provide them with the data that they need from these courses.
   
  The full report is available for viewing. 

• 2019-2020

  1) First year student success is critical to WSU’s retention and graduation efforts. We are interested in finding out how departments support their first-year students. Do you have mechanisms and processes in place to identify, meet with, and support first-year students? Please provide a brief narrative focusing on your program’s support of new students:

  • Any first-year students taking courses in your program(s). 
    • We get notified when a student declares a major in Web and User Experience, and for first-year students, we make sure to reach out and bring them in to have them meet with our WEB advisors. This allows us to introduce ourselves and give them more information about the program and help the students prepare for their upcoming semester. We also can show them the classrooms where the primary courses are held. 
    • During this meeting, we also talk about the available resources that the student has access too. We mention that we should schedule a meeting each semester so we can help them plan their courses to make sure they stay on the right path, and we also let them know that we are always available when they have questions. 
    • If students don't meet with us regularly as we advise them to, we have a checkbox in CatTracks that won't allow them to apply for their AAS graduation and move onto the upper-division courses until the box is checked. Doing this makes sure they at least meet with us before moving on to the upper-division courses, so we can make sure things are going well and see if they have any questions or concerns moving forward.

   

  • Students declared in your program(s), whether or not they are taking courses in your program(s) 
    • We follow the same protocol as above, we know which students are declared as Web and User Experience majors, and we reach out to make sure everything is going well, and they are still on track.

   

  2) A key component of sound assessment practice is the process of ‘closing the loop’ – that is, following up on changes implemented as a response to your assessment findings, to determine the impact of those changes/innovations. It is also an aspect of assessment on which we need to improve, as suggested in our NWCCU mid-cycle report. Please describe the processes your program has in place to ‘close the loop’.

  • The plan moving forward with the Web and User Experience program to close the loop is to assess and plan for our courses in an academic year. During this process, we will discuss our assessment findings with our industry advisory committee and faculty members to see how we want to proceed with our plan. After we have met with our industry advisory committee, which we meet twice a year, we will implement and then evaluate the courses. This cycle will be continuous, but also, the classes are going through the process at different times, which is shown in our assessment plan. This is done, so we aren't making changes to everything at once, but we allow us to stay current with changes in technology regularly.

   

  The full report is available

• 2017

  1) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?

  • Focus on helping the remaining 40 students graduate under the old program (while being flexible in substituting as necessary). 
  • Continue the transition of assessing the new WEB/UX curriculum and outcomes (which were implemented in 2017), as we continue to gradually phase out the assessment of this older program.  
  • We will continue to meet with Industry Advisory Committee members twice a year.

   

  2) We are interested in better understanding how departments/programs assess their graduating seniors or graduate students. Please provide a short narrative describing the practices/curriculum in place for your department/program. Please include both direct and indirect measures employed. Finally, what were your findings from this past year’s graduates?  

  • We anticipate assessing our students with direct evaluation of tangible portfolios (at both the AAS and BS level). All graduating students will be required to have an exit interview with a faculty member prior to being signed off for graduation. All graduates will be invited back one year after graduation to serve on our Alumni Advisory Board.
  • We found last year’s graduates were deficient in several (current) web technology skills as they left the University (thus the drive to adjust curriculum and outcomes beginning with the 2017 catalog).

   

  The full report is available

• 2016

  1) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?

  • We will be moving curriculum to a brand new WEB/UX degree program in 2017, and will start a new assessment process of the new program.

   

  2) We are interested in better understanding how departments/programs assess their graduating seniors. Please provide a short narrative describing the practices/curriculum in place for your department/program. Please include both direct and indirect measures employed

  • We anticipate assessing our students with direct evaluation of tangible portfolios (at both the AAS and BS level). All graduating students will be required to have an exit interview with a faculty member prior to being signed off for graduation.  All graduates will be invited back one year after graduation to serve on our Alumni Advisory Board.

   

  The full report is available for viewing. 

• 2015

  1)    Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?

  Faculty remain confident that students continue to excel in the program learning outcomes as evidenced in the assessment data provided in the charts of this report. Ratings from employers of the majority of student interns have remained in the highest possible category. The remaining students were rated in the 2nd highest category. No student interns received a poor rating by their employer.

  2)    With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts? 
  The results of the year’s assessment efforts are shared on the web through this assessment report, with the NTM faculty dur-ing department meetings, and with Business/Multimedia Advisory Board.

  3)    Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?  
  a.    The program would benefit from additional funding for full-time faculty. 
  b.    Advanced courses which would add depth to current courses would increase students’ knowledge and skills in multimedia technology, web programming, and the ability to identify and solve problems. 
  c.    Artifacts are being made more accessible to students so they can be used as learning tools.
  d.    The cycle of multimedia offerings is being changed to balance lower- and upper-division courses between semes-ters. We will continue to evaluate the schedule to better meet student needs.
  e.    Look at possible means to increase scholarship and internship opportunities for students. 
  f.    Look for additional ways to increase enrollment in courses and majors in the program.

  The full report is available for viewing.

• 2014

  1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?

  Faculty remain confident that students continue to excel in the program learning outcomes as evidenced in the assessment data provided in the charts of this report. Ratings from employers of the majority of student interns have remained in the highest possible category. The remaining students were rated in the 2nd highest category. No student interns received a poor rating by their employer.

  
  2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts? 

  The results of the year’s assessment efforts are shared on the web through this assessment report, with the NTM faculty during department meetings, and with Business/Multimedia Advisory Board.

  
  3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?  

  The program would benefit from additional funding for full-time faculty.
   Advanced courses which would add depth to current courses would increase students’ knowledge and skills in multimedia technology, web programming, and the ability to identify and solve problems. 
  Artifacts are being made more accessible to students so they can be used as learning tools.
  The cycle of multimedia offerings is being changed to balance lower- and upper-division courses between semesters. We will continue to evaluate the schedule to better meet student needs.
  Look at possible means to increase scholarship and internship opportunities for students. 
  Look for additional ways to increase enrollment in courses and majors in the program.

  
  The full report is available for viewing.

• 2013

  1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the

  program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?

  • Faculty remain confident that students continue to excel in the program learning outcomes as evidenced in the assessment data provided in the charts of this report. Ratings from employers of the majority of student interns have remained in the highest possible category.  The remaining students were rated in the 2nd highest category. No student interns received a poor rating by their employer.

   

  2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?

  • The results of the year’s assessment efforts are shared on the web through this assessment report, with the NTM faculty during department meetings, and with Business/Multimedia Advisory Board.

   

  3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?

  •  The program would benefit from additional funding for full-time faculty.
  • Advanced courses which would add depth to current courses would increase students’ knowledge and skills in multimedia technology, web programming, and the ability to identify and solve problems.
  • Artifacts are being made more accessible to students so they can be used as learning tools.
  • The cycle of multimedia offerings is being changed to balance lower- and upper-division courses between semesters.
  • We will continue to evaluate the schedule to better meet student needs.
  • Look at possible means to increase scholarship and internship opportunities for students.
  •  Look for additional ways to increase enrollment in courses and majors in the program.
  • Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
  • Faculty remain confident that students continue to excel in the program learning outcomes as evidenced in the assessment data provided in the charts of this report. Ratings from employers of the majority of student interns have remained in the highest possible category. The remaining students were rated in the 2nd highest category. No student interns received a poor rating by their employer.

   

  4) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?

  • The results of the year’s assessment efforts are shared on the web through this assessment report, with the NTM faculty during department meetings, and with Business/Multimedia Advisory Board.

   

  5) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?

  • The program would benefit from additional funding for full-time faculty.
  • Advanced courses which would add depth to current courses would increase students’ knowledge and skills in multimedia technology, web programming, and the ability to identify and solve problems.
  • Artifacts are being made more accessible to students so they can be used as learning tools.
  • The cycle of multimedia offerings is being changed to balance lower- and upper-division courses between semesters.
  • We will continue to evaluate the schedule to better meet student needs.
  •  Look at possible means to increase scholarship and internship opportunities for students.
  • Look for additional ways to increase enrollment in courses and majors in the program.

   

  To view the full report select this link: 2012/13 Business Multimedia Technologies Annual Assessment Report

2018-19