The evaluation plan aims to determine the effectiveness of Virginia Tech's Online Master of Agricultural and Life Sciences (OMALS) program in developing professional competencies, providing academic support, and establishing a sense of community. The OMALS program offers a online master's degree with five concentration areas to working professionals. The evaluation will survey students on their expertise and career development, advising support quality, and sense of community through the program. Results will be reported to primary stakeholders to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

1. Logic Model
The Evaluation Plan for Online Master of Agriculture and Life Sciences (OMALS) Program
Xiaoyan Ma; Tinesha M. Woods-Wells
Department of Learning Sciences and Technologies, Virginia Tech; Department of Agricultural, Leadership, & Community Education, Virginia Tech
Program Background
Originated from 2005, the Online Master of
Agricultural and Life Sciences (OMALS) is an online
degree program offered by the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences at Virginia Tech. The students
enrolled are working professionals in the agriculture
and life sciences industries.
The mission of the program is to
• meet the evolving and dynamic learning needs of
place-bound professionals in the field of agriculture
and life sciences;
• help them build discipline-specific knowledge and
• provide them a supportive and learner-centered
online learning environment.
Program Components
Stakeholders
Report
Evaluation Timeline
REFERENCES
Each of the enrolled students should identify one
concentration during the application process from the
five concentration areas as follows:
• Education
• Environmental Science
• Food Safety and Biosecurity
• Leadership Studies
• Plant Science and Pest Management.
We identified three levels of stakeholders in this
evaluation plan, based on the evaluation goals and
purposes.
Evaluation Goals
The purpose of this evaluation is to determine whether the OMALS program is effectively
developing professional competencies, providing academic support, and establishing a
sense of community amongst students enrolled in the program.
Guiding questions:
1.What is the students’ perception of the effectiveness of the program in building their
expertise and career in their field?
2. What is the students’ perceived quality of advising support in the current program?
3. What is the students’ perceived sense of community within the current program?
The evaluation report will include the answers to the three guiding
questions with a focus on the strengths and opportunities for
improvement. The main audience of the report will be our primary
stakeholder, who will distribute the results to the secondary or the
tertiary stakeholders.
Chavis, D. M., Lee, K.S., & Acosta J.D. (2008). The sense of community
(SCI) revised: The reliability and validity of the SCI-2. Paper presented at
the 2nd International Community Psychology Conference, Lisboa,
Portugal.
Lamoree, D. & Aguirre, N. (2010). Distance learning student satisfaction
survey report. Retrieved from Mt. San Antonio College website:
http://www.mtsac.edu
Winston, R. B., & Sandor, J. A. (2002). Evaluating academic advising:
Manual for the academic advising inventory. Retrieved November, 20,
2014.
Acknowledgements: The research team would like to acknowledge Dr. Anderson for his guidance in structuring and focusing this evaluation, as well as Ayla Wilk for her discussion and shared experience on the OMALS program. We also appreciated receiving feedback on our draft plan from Dr. Burge and Maria Stack.
Data Collection and Analysis
Instructors
Learning Management
System: Scholar
Instructors
Learning Management
System: Scholar