What sets Planning & Self-Study apart?
Tired of juggling spreadsheets and endless meetings for assessment and accreditation? What if you could unify everything—from planning to program review—in one intuitive system? Watermark Planning & Self-Study is changing the game for higher education. See how we stand out from the competition.
“[Watermark Planning & Self-Study] is easy to use and is intuitive for infrequent users. My favorite feature is the ability to build onto your program reviews year after year. This provides clear documentation of student learning outcomes, measures, actions, changes, adapted student learning outcomes, new measures, new actions, and so on to show a culture of assessment and continual improvement.”
— Jana VanderTook, M.S., Director of Faculty Services and Assessment, Oklahoma Baptist University
| Feature | Watermark Planning & Self-Study | Vendors including, but not limited to, Blackboard (formerly Anthology), Nuventive, and Weave |
| Centralized processes | Consolidates planning, assessment, program review, and accreditation processes into a unified, efficient system | Disjointed, fragmented systems and siloed data and workflows |
| Integrated measurement | Integrations with major LMS platforms, directly tapping assessment data so you can analyze student learning outcomes at granular and macro levels | Lack of critical LMS integrations forces manual data transfers, disjointed data, and complicates assessment |
| User experience | Modern and intuitive; simplifies complex tasks to make it easy to get the full picture of assessment needs and understand outcomes | Complex and cumbersome; faculty and staff struggle to learn and use them effectively |
| Actionable insights | Real-time dashboards and dynamic reports, providing instant answers about engagement and outcomes | Clunky and a lack of real reports leading to ambiguous data that inhibits decision making and campus planning |
| Evidence hub | Capture evidence centrally and hyperlink it across unlimited self studies; pre-built templates available for easy export to accreditors | Scattered evidence, difficult hyperlinking, limited self-studies, and export restrictions |
| Program relevance and foresight | Integrated with Lightcast to give labor market context, informing program and curricular changes | No integrated labor market data |
| Campus-wide impact | Unifies academic and non-academic assessment, operationalizing CAS standards and integrating data from Watermark tools for a complete view of institutional effectiveness | Most are siloed from other systems, lack built-in guidance and tools to assess programs and services |
| Innovation | Actively evolves to refine the user experience, deliver new insights, and streamline processes with AI | Frequently outdate systems that lack modern features and consistent development |
| Customer service | Dedicated, responsive team to ensure a seamless transition | Ranges from inconsistent, slow, and lacking in dedicated guidance to solid but unable to compensate for product shortcomings |
