The postsecondary community is inundated with data requests and opportunities for rankings and “guide books” of various kinds. A seemingly unending amount of time and resources can be devoted to these efforts, so the University needs to be strategic and selective about the external surveys or ranking programs in which to participate. In an effort to better define the IE resources to expend on external reporting surveys (not the survey research program that IE manages) and to define the operating framework for external survey reporting, we have adopted the following schema to help us focus our resources on surveys that are most important and beneficial to the University.
IE-Led Surveys
IE-Led Surveys are those with the following characteristics. In these instances, IE will lead and coordinate data collection, verification, and submission.
- University-level information/data, most often aligned to the Common Data Set (CDS) initiative or other Federal reporting
- High stakes or high value (e.g., the NSF/NIH/GSS survey, which is used in determining our Carnegie Classification)
- Important/priority University-level rankings (e.g., U.S. News’ Best Colleges, etc.)
- University accreditation- to meet annual or periodic needs of NWCCU
- Compliance- to fulfill requirements for IPEDS and SBOE, these reports often provide definitions and methods for measuring various concepts in standardized ways
- University priorities- to support critical needs, such as the “top 5” surveys identified for Admissions or other surveys tied to specific University goals
In these instances, IE will align University data with standards of reporting and employ consistent methodologies from year to year. Many “guide book” surveys require broad-based information and, though IE may be able to provide much of the data, we will continue to rely on participation from other relevant offices (e.g., Admissions, Graduate College, Housing, etc.) to ensure that we have the necessary context-specific information about topics led by those areas.
IE-Supported Surveys
Many other types of external reporting surveys exist that delve into specific disciplines, align with very specific needs, or meet the needs of specialized accreditation. IE does not have the resources available to serve as the lead on every possible discipline-specific survey or those that do not meet the criteria for an IE-led survey as listed above. In addition, frequently a majority (>50%) of the data or information required for these types of surveys needs to be supplied from experts from within the program, including information about curriculum offerings, specialties, etc.; thus, individuals from within the units are better positioned to provide the information and ensure its accuracy. For these reasons, IE no longer leads discipline-specific or unit-specific surveys and has instead adopted the following framework for IE-Supported Surveys.
- Responsibility for completing discipline- or unit-specific surveys, including those completed for specialized accreditation, is held by a person from the relevant unit.
- The designee/contact person from the relevant college or discipline is responsible for: (a) ensuring with those responsible for the unit/program/discipline (i.e., department chair/head and, if needed, dean) that participating in the effort is aligned to the priorities of the department/college; (b) coordinating, gathering, and submitting the necessary information/data; (c) conforming to standard reporting definitions and conventions (see #5 below) to ensure accuracy of the data, except in cases where the report specifies parameters different from the standards, (d) signing-off on the data they gather.
- The contact person may submit data requests to IE via the university data request form, allowing sufficient time for the request to be considered and fulfilled. In this way, IE will continue to support relevant data collection/reporting through formatted data summaries but not be responsible for coordinating participation from specific units or entering data on behalf of other departments. IE will continue to sign-off on data that it provides but not data outside of that scope.
- Any time IE receives notification about a discipline-specific or unit-specific survey, we will share it with the relevant contact person (where one exists) and the unit leader (with CC to the Dean or Associate Dean of that college) to determine if they wish to participate. When interest is expressed, IE will convey new contact information to the survey program so that the contact person in the college/department/program receives all relevant communication from the vendor.
- IE will: (a) develop and maintain a specific website with information pertinent to “typical reporting standards” to assist survey coordinators in understanding general reporting conventions and provide information about sources and definitions, (b) be available to advise and answer questions along those lines, and (c) help units with requests for specialized reports to be developed in campus reporting tools to aid in current and subsequent reporting.
Adopted September 2020