Design Principles underpinning the ELN Self-Assessment Tool

The following principles have guided the design of the ELN Self-Assessment Tool.

The ELN Self-Assessment Tool gives direction to its users as to what good practice in embedded literacy and numeracy looks like.
Usage of the ELN Self-Assessment Tool results in a judgement of an organisation’s or programme’s embedded literacy and numeracy outcomes and practices, stated evidence for this judgement, and actions for improvement.
The ELN Self-Assessment Tool is aligned with the Key Evaluation Questions (NZQA, n.d.-a, n.d.-b) in order to enable integration into an organisation’s existing self-assessment processes.
The ELN Self-Assessment Tool acknowledges that self-assessment of embedded literacy and numeracy is a collaborative activity. As such, it is meant to stimulate conversation and discussion about embedded literacy and numeracy within an organisation.
The ELN Self-Assessment Tool can be applied within an organisation as a whole, but also within individual subsections of an organisation as relevant to the organisation (e.g., a single programme, a department or other organisational unit).
Using the ELN Self-Assessment Tool results in a comprehensive analysis of the strengths and areas for improvement in an organisation. At the same time, using the ELN Self-Assessment Tool should not take up an unreasonable amount of time.
The ELN Self-Assessment Tool is flexible in the sense that at any time users can select on which embedded literacy and numeracy self-assessment areas they want to focus.
Organisations are able to use the ELN Self-Assessment Tool without support from outside agencies, although initial training of facilitators may be helpful to get the most out of using the ELN Self-Assessment Tool.