Watermark Planning & Self-Study Reviews & Product Details

Watermark Planning and Self-Study offers the integration of academic program review, accreditation self-studies, and strategic planning! If you are using multiple programs supplemented with shared folders or spreadsheets, look no further. Watermark Planning and Self-Study is your answer! The tool is easy to use and is intuiative 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. Watermark is continually upgrading features so challenges are addressed quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The one downside of Watermark Planning and Self-Study is the set-up and implementation. Let me explain, though. I'm an office of one who had a short timeframe for implementation. I was learning and training at the same time. Consider giving your implementation team the time to be familiar with the product before rolling out to the key stakeholders. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Planning & Self Study keeps all the information organized in one place by Unit/Program and by year. Whenever we need to verify progress on a specific Strategic Goal, we can easily see what has been submitted and what is missing.

I recommend using this tool because, after submitting the information, users can clearly see how the data aligns with the Strategic Goals. At a glance, we can also verify which goals have been addressed the most. Additionally, sharing screenshots of progress has motivated units to improve their submissions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only drawback is the structure of the system. Sometimes we encounter mistakes due to confusion in the fields, and unfortunately, we cannot delete incorrect information.

Something that has improved is customer support; response times have been reduced. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have used Watermark's Planning & Self Study for years now and I love how flexible the system is. We use P&SS for our academic program review, our general education review, our strategic planning, and our accreditation report submission. I think the system is easy enough to use that we can allow faculty to log in and enter the data for their IE data. I really appreciate how easy it is to do a year by year comparison on IE results. I think the reporting features of the accreditation self study areas are excellent. We just completed our ten-year reaffirmation of accreditation, and it was a simple process to use the templates provided by Watermark for our compliance certification, our focused report, and our response report. I would definitely recommend P&SS to other institutions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Two things that come to mind...

1) It would be nice for Watermark's products to "talk" to each other. For instance, when I'm entering faculty data into P&SS, it would be much easier for me to be able to pull that data directly from Faculty Success. Similarly, it would be nice to be able to pull course information from Curriculum Manager into P&SS or Faculty Success.

2) When we download the yearly reports of the academic program reviews from P&SS, if they are printed, the font is so small it is impossible to read. I've tried formatting the reports every way I can think of, but they are not customizable. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Aligns goals, tracks outcomes, supports accreditation, enables collaboration, and drives continuous improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Less useful functions include overly rigid templates that can limit flexibility in representing unique program structures or nuanced narratives. The interface, while functional, may feel unintuitive or outdated, leading to a learning curve for new users. Customizing reports and dashboards often requires technical support or advanced training, reducing accessibility for average users. Integration with non-Watermark systems can be limited or cumbersome, especially for institutions with diverse data ecosystems. Automated notifications and workflow tracking, while helpful, can generate excessive emails or lack nuance in complex review cycles. Additionally, the platform's emphasis on compliance and documentation may encourage a box-checking mentality, potentially detracting from genuine reflection and innovation. While these limitations do not negate the system’s value, they can hinder user engagement and reduce the efficiency of institutional processes if not carefully managed. Institutions must invest in training and thoughtful implementation to mitigate these challenges. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is straight-forward, easy to understand the hierarchy. Steps are easy to follow. Training new faculty on the software is much easier after obtaining additional administrator training due to our administrator leaving the role. Watermark went above and beyond to provide excellent customer support to ensure we understood how to get the most out of the product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Initially it wasn't that intuitive. This had more to do with what we could do on our own as administrators in this software when most of our exposure was to Taskstream (now Outcomes Assessment Project). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I like that P&SS imports data from Student Learning and Licensure (SLL). The charts that summarize the reported data are helpful and P&SS provides a space to delineate plans for continuous improvement. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The integration with SLL is clunky and requires a lot of sorting that should, ideally, be done by PSS. For example, after selecting a semester for review and a course for review the P&SS does not limit the choices of rubrics from which to pull data. I only use PSS once or twice a year, and feel it could be a little more intuitive especilally when trying to gather data from the SLL. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The platform offers a structured and intuitive interface that allows faculty, administrators, and staff to easily input data, attach supporting documentation, and track progress. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Although the interface is relatively intuitive, initial onboarding requires dedicated training sessions and support, especially for users who are not familiar with assessment terminology or digital workflows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's generally easy to navigate and edit once you get the hang of it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

One problem is that you need to know where to go to enter certain information. For example, at my institution, we are asked to provide a summary result in narrative form that directly corresponds to the target criteria for success. If I have a learning outcome and use the graph feature (met, exceeded, etc) - which is not really useful at all - I also have to write the actual result. I need to know where to click to activate both the graph and the summary. That's not very visible.

Another problem is that I like to attach supporting documentation about both my measures and results and it wasn't clear that attachments in the measure description section get pushed over year to year while the attachments in the results section do not. That is not apparently clear to me as a user. But now I know. There is no optimal place to include documentation about how results were disseminated nor is there a field entry box to explain whether and when assessment results and actions were disseminated internally or to other stakeholders.

The graph feature is only available on the learning outcomes - but even then there is no value added to having a graph that is too generic. for one, people can't really see which expectations were met (relative to what?). Additionally, the graphical representation of summary results is not "Actionable." only if results are just so bad, then graph will show some general need to improve. But otherwise, it's pretty useless (but it sure looks professional to have a graph). Why not make the graph customizable. For example, if I were to use a rubric with multiple domains or have a multiple-choice exam with multiple component areas or if I wanted to compare overall scores for subpopulations of students, then a customizable graph perhaps in the analysis section of the report would be much more useful.

The actions section while good at tracking updates, they get embedded into the report where the "Action" originated. This is not as helpful because actions that are still in progress or are actively being implemented do not get pushed over from year to year with a thread of updates on what was done and when. Therefore, the "Actions" feature is nice, but also kind of useless. It requires users to go back to the original report or to copy and paste actions into the current report year to provide an update. I want to be able to show the progression of actions as they move beyond the proposal stage to in progress to "complete" and then show how the action impacted results.

There are also no sections to propose and track actions at the programmatic level only at the measure or outcome levels. I do not like how the actions get tracked on the report at the outcome level because they look out of place. When actions are provided at the measure level they look clean and help the reader connect the dots between 1) slos 2) measures, 3) results/analysis and 4) actions.

Finally there is no section to include other updates or explanation or relevant context about the state of the program or unit that might need to be included (for example, organizational changes, new leadership, low enrollment, signature initiative at the college level). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I am the Assessment and Accountability Coordinator for a School of Education. Over the past year, I have used Watermark Self-Study Report platform to support our state mandated accreditation preparation and planning efforts. My experiences with Watermark have been productive and a major support for our program. One of the greatest strengths of the platform is that it is already aligned to CAEP standards. We have embedded NELP (leadership standards) and InTASC (teacher-based standards) into the platform. This helped streamline the process of uploading required information into the CAEP portal and transferring those details over to the Watermark portal. I was able to provide all of the pieces of evidences (files, pdfs, etc.) into the Watermark portal. Faculty members were able to access the information they needed to support our accreditation process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

If the portal could link with CAEP's AIMS 2.0 that would help by allowing me to add information into Watermark and the details are transferred over to AIMS 2.0. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Watermark has proven to be actually what I was told, shown and introduced it to be! The customer service support has been phenomenal and super friendly with the best turnaround time when contacted. I am in awe with the number of features and options to ensure that my college reaches their academic goals. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nothing at this time. I have only been using in this platform for a little over 6 months and so far so good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.