Visualizing Data for Proactive Decisions
Joe DeHart, Des Moines Area Community College
Des Monies Area Community College has successfully evolved from a reactive mindset to a culture of proactive, data-driven decision making with self-service, interactive reports that are available immediately via the web, iPad, or tablet. By encompassing predictive, analytics into the decision making process and empowering staff with access to powerful analytical tools, the college is making better decisions about how it can best serve its students. From making connections between registration behavior and graduation success rates to how to measure placement test effectiveness, learn how DMACC is using SAS Visual Analytics as the foundation for their success.
Increasing Data and Analytics Capacity through the MDC Data Academy
Archie Cubarrubia, Miami Dade College
Miami Dade College (MDC) is piloting the MDC Data Academy, a 30-hour noncredit professional development course structured as a graduate-level research methods course and designed to improve employee skills related to data and information use. The knowledge, skills, and abilities covered in the MDC Data Academy are designed to help employees with little to zero background in statistical analysis improve their data literacy and cultivate a culture of inquiry and evidence within their respective areas at the institution. As part of the course, participants develop a research proposal designed to address a problem of research or problem of practice relevant to their respective areas and approved by their supervisors. The presentation will share information about MDC’s initiative followed by a discussion about creating opportunities for non-data-minded faculty and staff to engage with data and analytics.
Serving the Kool-Aid: Using Technology to Document Continuous Improvement Processes
Joe Baumann, Blinn College
An institution of higher education, as well as each department within that institution, needs to follow a consistent continuous improvement process. Developing and communicating the process and related expectations is only the first step. A few colleagues will adopt the process and be role models for others. But how can you know that all departments, not just most, are engaged in continuous improvement? How can you move beyond anecdotes to reliable evidence that all departments are following the process? At Blinn College, we worked with the developers of our assessment/planning tracking software to create a custom report that tells us just that. Presenter: Joe Baumann, Blinn College
The New Kid on the Block – Power BI
Natalie Alleman-Beyers, Johnson County Community College
Mark Gordon, Johnson County Community College
We will introduce and demonstrate Microsoft’s new business intelligence tool (Power BI). The tool is easy to use, provides superb data visualizations, with the ability to share reports, all at a very good price. It is a great tool for any Institutional Research office. Come and see, come and share, and provide feedback on the reports we have built to date.
Exploring Impact in University-Community Partnerships: Community Partner Definitions, Perspectives, and Implementation Strategies
Amanda Bowers, University of Louisville, College of Education & Human Development
This qualitative case study aims to collect information from community partners within the education focus area of a Campus-Community Partnership Initiative on how they define and perceive impact, as well as how they strategize to create a positive impact on local education outcomes in a proximate community. The investigation examines (1) how impact is defined, (2) perceptions of how impact occurs within partnership work, (3) how well the university meets the needs of community partners in working toward impact goals, (4) how site-specific impact goals align with the larger initiative goals, and (5) how well community partners feel they are moving toward identified goals. Of particular interest are notions of shared accountability and how partners conceptualize the process of moving from abstract goals to specific indicators of impact.
Performance Funding using the NCCBP
Bret Appleton, State Fair Community College
Kelli Burns, St. Louis Community College
Matt Simpson, Ozark Technical Community College
Colleges are developing & implementing innovations in developmental education. While these innovations ultimately improve student performance & completion, they can also have a negative impact on college performance funding metric. This session will inform researchers about the work of MO CCs & their impact on state performance funding models. To respond to this dilemma a task force was formed to work w/ the MO Dept. of Ed. & to develop new metrics to replace the 2 developmental success measures in Missouri’s current Performance Funding Criteria. The task force selected other metrics to study before a final recommendation is made to the state. The specific metrics and the process of testing & evaluating these metrics will be shared.
Higher Education Cost/Revenue Modeling – Moving Beyond Spreadsheets to Support Strategic Resource Alignment
Susan Rider, Johnson County Community College
Barbara Larson, Johnson County Community College
Anthony Pember, Grant Thornton
Achieving transparency and financial stability in the higher education business model is a complex and difficult task. Business lines inter¬twine, and academic departments, auxiliaries, and administrative functions all compete for finite resources. While the higher education op¬erating model has always been multifaceted, changes in student demographics and state funding, fluctuations in graduation rates, low donation growth, and increasing competition are making it increasingly challenging for colleges and universities to deliver a high-quality education in a fiscally sound manner. This session will explore how a well designed and constructed higher education cost and revenue model can provide institutions with cost and margin analytic capability far beyond that which can be achieved through the use of spreadsheets and how this newfound analytic data can support college and university initiatives.
Turning the DIAL on Student Success: Data, Insights, Action, Learning
Rob Robinson, Civitas Learning
Many higher education institutions are now diving into their data to unlock stories told within. These are tales of student risk and opportunity, of understanding how to best increase retention. As these stories are told, it becomes incumbent on the institution to turn insights into action. By building scalable analytics infrastructure, colleges and universities can position themselves for true student success.
Leveraging the DIAL framework, Civitas Learning partners with institutions to optimize their growing, diverse, and disconnected data; maximize insights uncovered; inform action around interventions and inspiration; and continue to learn. This session will highlight real results from across the country where partner institutions have turned the DIAL to immediately impact specific behaviors and populations to help student learn well and finish strong.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Postsecondary Success Strategy
Patrick Rossol-Allison, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
This session outlines how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works with its higher education partners so that more students graduate with affordable, high-quality certificates or degrees and that race, income, and gender are no longer predictors of educational attainment. The presentation will focus on the foundation’s collaboration with colleges, universities, and systems that are scaling innovations to improve student outcomes.
Facilitating Institutional Improvement Utilizing Faculty Compensation Data for Two-Year Institutions
John Barnshaw, American Association of University Professors
Although a majority of instructional expenditures stem from faculty salaries and benefits, many two-year institutions struggle to align these costs by rank or compensation category. Utilizing data from the 2015 – 2016 American Association of University Professors Faculty Compensation Survey, this session offers the opportunity to explore data alignment, best practices for data utilization, and implications for two-year institutions ranging from instructional expenditure, cost alignment, and retirement plans.
A Cup of Joes – Discussion on the Future of IR
Joe Sopcich, Johnson County Community College
Joe Collins, College of DuPage
Joe Baumann, Blinn College
Joe DeHart, Des Moines Area Community College
Critical Partnerships: Integrating Academics and Student Support Services to Enable SPC Students to “Start Smart and Finish Strong”
Opportunities and Challenges Faced by a Multi-campus State College in Developing Career and Academic Pathways
Margaret Bowman, St. Petersburg College
St. Petersburg College demonstrates its process for developing Career and Academic Pathways to improve program completion rates and reduce the number of excess credit hours students accumulate throughout their college experience. This session will emphasize the importance of engaging members of academic, student services, and administrative staff in meaningful discussions about curriculum redesign and realignment to best facilitate success for all students. Participants will explore the process and conversations that must occur between faculty, deans, and advisors to design effective Career and Academic Pathways. Modeled after best practices and research on accelerating student completion, SPC’s curriculum reform initiatives have paved the way for prescriptive, clear pathways that align to student and program outcomes and have identifiable entry and exit points regardless of where students are in their academic journeys. As the process evolves, SPC is leveraging Career and Academic Pathways as a bridge between preparation for workforce competencies (e.g., industry certifications) and academic outcomes (e.g., community college certificates and AS/BAS/BS programs).
Performance Funding 2.0 – Developments in Three States (IL, TX, FL)
Thomas Martin, Collin College
Scott Parke, Collin College
There is a resurgence in Performance Funding (PF) across the country as state legislators and governors are directing higher education officials to align funding models with state goals and priorities. As a part of PF 2.0 — which is underway in 32 states and transitioning to performance funding in 5 more
(NCSL) — institutions are being incentivized to promote student advancement, degree completion and workforce outcomes. Researchers with experience in three major community college states in different stages of the development of PF 2.0 – established, operational, and recently re-entered PF – will conduct the session. Session leaders will engage in a discussion of key decision points (e.g., types of metrics in use – general, progress, subgroup, high need — weighting, establishing a level playing field, etc.); describe potential future directions; and provide a national context. With three-quarters of the states either practicing or on the verge of PF 2.0, we welcome discussion about the extent to which some type of summary metric reflecting state performance funding might be incorporated in the NCCBP.