Welcome to the first Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) newsletter. OIRA exists to support the university community in the areas of planning, assessment, and decision-making by providing timely, accurate, and meaningful information to advance the university’s mission and values.聽 OIRA was formed in January 2019 as the merger of the former Office of Assessment and Office of Institutional Research. Providing data, analytical, and assessment support is at the heart of our office鈥檚 mission.聽 Among the primary activities of our office are:

• Providing U海角社区 data for internal and external reporting, including college guidebooks, external grant reporting, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
• Supporting academic units in conducting student learning outcomes assessment
• Facilitating the assessment of General Education student learning outcomes
• Managing the student evaluation of teaching process including the scanning of paper forms and management of the Explorance Blue online system
• Providing adhoc analyses on request to support units with academic planning
• Developing enrollment and credit hour projections for planning and budget preparation
• Serving on numerous campus and systemwide committees (e.g., UMS Data Advisory Committee, Navigate Leadership Team, Student Systems Steering Committee)

We have now consolidated the websites of the two offices: . In the interest of expanding access to data and information, this new site includes additional assessment materials and Power BI interactive dashboards.聽 We will be adding content and data throughout the year. In addition to expanding our website, we will be offering a series of assessment workshops and Power BI training sessions. We will use this monthly newsletter to communicate updates to our website, dates and times for workshops and training sessions, and the publication of new reports.

We are here to help.聽 Please never hesitate to reach out to Deb Allen (debra.allen@maine.edu) or one of our staff members with any assessment or data needs. Our contact info can be found on our Staff Directory page.

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OIRA offers test scoring services for faculty and manages the paper and online student evaluations of teaching process.

Testing Services

Testing Services provides scanning services for faculty.聽 We have now moved to 120 Alumni Hall. The office is right inside the middle outside door facing the parking lot.聽 Please drop your tests off at the office or, if it is after the hours of 8 to 4:30, drop your tests off at the Reserve Desk in the Reading Room at Fogler library and let Lisa Henderson (lisa.henderson@maine.edu) know that tests have been dropped off.聽

Student Evaluations of Teaching

The use of the online Student Evaluations of Teaching System鈥攅Xplorance Blue鈥攈as grown significantly over the past year. We now have roughly 60% of academic units using Blue for all evaluations.聽 Some updates include:

• A recent version upgrade has allowed us more flexibility, particularly with respect to multiple instructor courses.聽聽
• Please see the Student Evaluation of Teaching portion of our website for information on forms, timing, process, and tips and tricks for implementing online student evaluations of teaching.
• Tip: To maintain adequate response rates we recommend setting aside class time to do evaluations in Blue, consistent with the process for conducting paper evaluations.

If your academic unit is still using paper forms for student evaluations of teaching but interested in going online, please contact Ryan Weatherbee (ryan.a.weatherbee@maine.edu).聽 For questions about the online process not addressed on the website, please contact Lisa Henderson (lisa.henderson@maine.edu).

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• IR data (e.g., enrollment, degrees, credit hours) organized by data type and college
• Power BI interactive dashboards that permit the disaggregation of data.
• Direct links to Student Learning Outcomes published for each academic program.
• Informational pages regarding test scoring services and course evaluations

Please see the Site Map under Quick Links on the bottom left menu for assistance with navigating the new site.聽

We will be enhancing the website throughout the year.聽 Please use the Submit Feedback button under Quick Links to communicate any additions or modifications you would like to see on the site.

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The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment now offers a new self-service interactive data page! In addition to providing our standard static reports, we now offer the ability to drill-down further into the data. Each dashboard includes a collection of charts on the respective topic. The buttons at the top of the dashboard allow you to select the metrics and the filters on the left side provide drill-down options.

We are happy to introduce the first three data dashboards available now:聽

• Undergraduate Admissions Data
• Graduate Admissions Data
• Enrollment Data

To access our new interactive data dashboards:

Navigate to /oira/reporting/interactive-data/

We will be using Microsoft鈥檚 Power BI, and have put together a useful Power BI quick start guide (pdf) to interacting with the dashboards on our website.聽Look for future dashboard updates in our newsletter!

Coming soon!聽

• Retention and Graduation Rates Data聽
• Degrees Conferred Data
• Student Credit Hours Offered by Academic Unit
• Customized password protected dashboards

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How do we build a culture of assessment at the University of 海角社区?

This is the question that frequently floats around our office.聽 How do we help create a culture of being reflective about the student learning outcomes for our programs? How do we support faculty doing this important work?聽 How do we help make assessment meaningful for faculty, chairs, and directors? Despite its rather unengaging title, 鈥渁ssessment of student learning outcomes鈥� is an engaging process in which faculty take a close look at their programs and reflect on how things are going, which very often leads to a healthy, collegial debate about how programs can be improved. These conversations help us understand, and ultimately strengthen, our programs.

Among our recent initiatives, is a deeper focus on assessment at the graduate level. In October we piloted a workshop on writing program learning outcomes at the graduate level. We are planning to offer this workshop, as well as workshops on curriculum mapping and developing program assessment plans in the spring semester.聽 A primary goal of our office is to ensure programs have the support they need for implementing program assessment. We are available for one-on-one conversations, group presentations, and tailored assessment-related workshops. Additionally, we are involved in the ongoing process of assessing our general education curriculum.聽 To date, two of the nine general education areas have been assessed: Western Cultural Tradition (May 2018) and Social Contexts and Institutions (May 2019). During this academic year, we will be assessing two additional general education areas: Cultural Diversity & International Perspectives (January 2020) and Population & Environment (May 2020). We hope that you will consider joining us for our half day scoring session on January 16, 2020. (Sign up聽!) It is open to faculty and staff as well as graduate students.聽 Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Developing a culture of assessment is about developing a culture of question asking, starting with the foundational question, 鈥淗ow can we improve student learning?鈥澛� This is at the heart of what assessment is all about. We are here to support you in determining the right questions to ask about your programs and helping you answer them in meaningful ways. Please don鈥檛 hesitate to reach out to us (amanda.barrington@maine.edu and/or ryan.a.weatherbee@maine.edu).聽 We look forward to hearing from you!

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In the summer U海角社区 launched Navigate, an advisor-facing platform and student-facing app geared toward student engagement and success.聽 The implementation of Navigate is being coordinated by Kim Stewart (kimberly.stewart@maine.edu).聽 Kim joined the OIRA team as the U海角社区 Navigate Coordinator in September.

The following provides some updates on our first-year implementation.

Navigate for Faculty and Staff
Workshops for faculty and staff advisors are well underway. Ten workshops have already been completed, introducing faculty and professional advisors to the basic functions of the Navigate staff platform. Many more workshops are scheduled throughout the remainder of the fall semester. Most workshops are being scheduled directly with the colleges, for specific audiences, but drop-in workshops will also be scheduled at the end of the semester and in January for faculty who are unable to attend their scheduled sessions.
In addition to an introduction to the basic functions of the platform, we have also been piloting the Progress Report and Early Alert functions of the platform with three courses. In the spring semester, we will expand this pilot to include additional courses. We will also develop policies surrounding alerts and follow up procedures.

Navigate for Students
This summer, we launched the Navigate student app at New Student Orientation. All undergraduate students have access to the app (which has both mobile and desktop versions), but the target audience for initial download was incoming first-year students. As of now, 84% of the first-year students are using the Navigate app. One of the most used features in the app is GPS coordinates tied to their class schedule so students could have walking directions to class while they were learning our campus. Other popular features include reminders of important deadlines, campus resources, and study buddies. For the full list of app features, visit the Navigate website.

Coming Spring 2020
While we started the rollout with first-year students, in the spring we will begin to market the app to all other undergraduate students when we turn on a new feature in the app: student-initiated appointment scheduling. The biggest push of the fall workshops with faculty is to have all faculty advisors set up their appointment availability in the staff platform. Once that step is complete, we will add a feature to the student app so that students can schedule advising appointments directly through the app. This will streamline the process of scheduling advising appointments for both the student and the advisor and break down barriers to advising.
Also in the spring semester, we will schedule drop-in workshops which offer a deeper dive into the functions of the staff platform. Workshop topics will include using appointment campaigns for targeted interventions, alerts and when to issue them, advisor notes: what information should and should not be included, and many more. The workshop schedule will be updated on the Navigate website.

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