Knowledge Surveyor is a new course assessment tool, designed to help students and faculty discover the strengths and weaknesses of their methods and preparation. It is a computerized implementation of the "knowledge survey" concept promoted by Dr. Edward Nuhfer (currently at Idaho State University) and Dr. Delores Knipp (U.S. Air Force Academy), two professors with an interest in improving college-level teaching and learning.

A knowledge survey is a comprehensive set of questions designed by your instructor to disclose--in great detail--a course's content and learning objectives, and the level of mastery expected from the students on each and every course topic. Students respond to a knowledge survey not by actually answering all of the questions prepared by the instructor (this would generally take too long), but by rating (on a four-point scale, ranging from 0 to 3) their confidence to answer each question at a level of competence suitable for graded test purposes (which is fairly quick, even for a long survey). It is anticipated that you won't be very confident about most of the material at the beginning of the semester, but that your confidence will improve as the term progresses. By the end of the semester, it should become very clear just how much you have learned about a great variety of material.

Because knowledge surveys are so detailed and comprehensive, you should consult them as a "road map" to the course and as a way of evaluating how well prepared you are for exams. You can think of them as being the world's most complete study guides for a class--much more revealing and thorough than a typical 1- or 2-page study guide handed out toward the end of the semester. In short, a key advantage of knowledge surveys is that they help you perform better by letting you see how you "measure up" against expectations in time for you to do something about it.

You can read more about knowledge surveys here.