Each semester, the IRAP office prepares course evaluations for all course sections with three or more students enrolled. Faculty provide class time to respond, and students provide answers to multiple-choice and free-text questions about themselves as students, the course, and the professor. (See Administrative Policy Manual Chapter 6, D. Faculty Employment Obligations, Section 3. Evaluation of Courses)

Within a few weeks after grades have been submitted, IRAP sends course evaluation summary reports to all course instructors. The first set of reports shows average scores or free text for all the questions. The second set of reports, called “Profile Line” reports, shows average scores for the course compared with departmental averages and college-wide averages.

If you need something different than what is provided standard, just ask!

IRAP understands you need data in support of your teaching, scholarship, advising, and service to the college. We try to anticipate your needs by making some regularized reports on a wide range of institutional data, collecting survey data and gathering frequently requested metrics. But, we know one size doesn’t fit all, so we save time to meet with you individually, develop new projects, and meet your needs.

If the data set you need is not available for download from this website, contact us.

IRAP provides support for faculty research through other activities, such as peer-reviewing survey instruments, brainstorming data exploration, sponsored-research support both pre- and post-award, and teaching techniques for presentation of data.  We can work through a problem together, collaborate on a presentation, or arrange a visit to your class (as an alum or a data geek). While support is subject to availability, I’m going to try to be there whenever possible.

 

Candidates for review and promotion may be expected to provide course evaluation reports as part of their review materials. Faculty already have received standard reports via email. If something is missing, or you’d like to request something additional (e.g. individualized comparison reports), email Ellie Anderbyrne (anderbyrneek@beloit.edu).

The Provost office sends a letter to candidates indicating the deadlines and expectations for these requests.

IRAP, in consultation with the Faculty Status & Performance committee, conducts a survey of all current and former students of tenure candidates. IRAP shares all results with the department chair and shares another version of the results that excludes potentially identifying information with both the chair and the candidate.

Further information regarding the tenure review process is available from the Faculty Status & Performance Committee.

Each semester department chairs will receive two sets of files with course evaluation reports: 1) one with all the summary reports for courses taught by faculty members primarily listed in their department 2) one with all the summary reports for courses that are listed in their department, but taught by professors outside of their department. Additionally, department chairs receive a PDF file showing average departmental course evaluation scores compared with college-wide averages.

Department chairs who would like additional course evaluation analyses or profile line reports are invited to email Ellie Anderbyrne (anderbyrneek@beloit.edu ) to discuss.

Before a department member’s tenure review, IRAP, in consultation with FS&P, conducts a survey of all current and former students of the candidate. IRAP shares all results with the department chair—this version is just for you. IRAP shares another version of the results that excludes potentially identifying information with you and the candidate.

Further information regarding the tenure review process is available from the Faculty Status & Performance Committee.

The Academic Departmental Activity Reports are a suite of 15 reports produced annually that show departmental-level data about course enrollments, graduates, current students’ declared majors/minors, and faculty counts. Originally created at the request of the Academic Strategic Planning committee to support departments applying for tenure lines, these reports may also be used for many other purposes.

Student Experience Metrics are available by major. IRAP provides these to department chairs each year; contact IRAP for historical data.

Some student survey data is available by major or division. For example, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) results are available for Natural Science majors, for Social Science majors, for Arts & Humanities majors, for Interdisciplinary majors, and for Undeclared students.

Some publicly available data is available by program. For example, anyone may download from IPEDS the number of degrees granted (“completions”) by program at most institutions in the United States.

 

• Curious about course enrollments in your department over time or compared to college-wide averages? The Academic Department Activity reports (aka ASP Reports) have reports about course enrollments for all courses, for “domain” courses, for “skills” courses, for liberal arts in practice courses, and for capstone courses.
• Curious about the number of graduates in your department over time or compared to college-wide averages?
  • The Academic Department Activity Reports have reports about the number of graduates with majors or minors in each department over time, and broken out by sex and race/ethnicity.
  • If you want data by major or minor (rather than by department), just ask IRAP to send you our most recent summary information about graduates.
    
• Curious about the experiences students in your department are having or the relationships they form? Student Experience Metrics results are available by department of declared majors. IRAP provides these to department chairs each year; contact IRAP if you need them.
• Curious about further education students do after Beloit? IRAP has a couple of sources of information about this. Contact IRAP to discuss what would work best for you.

Curious about how the number of majors in your department compares with similar departments at other schools? Almost all colleges in the country report to the Department of Education each year the number of degrees granted (“completions”) by program.

You can download many years of this data for Beloit, schools in Beloit’s core comparison group, and most other schools in the United States. While the data is publicly available, finding what you want can be a bit tricky:

1. Go to the IPEDS Use the Data page.
2. Select Compare Institutions.
3. Select provisional release data (“provisional data” will give you a more recent year than “final data” and is very unlikely to change when the data becomes final).
4. Choose the schools you want to compare with by entering them in or by pasting a list of them. For most purposes, IRAP recommends you make your comparisons with the Core Comparison Group schools. Continue.
5. Expand Completions, then expand and select the type of data you want to download (for example, “Awards/degrees conferred by program (2010 CIP classification), award level, race/ethnicity, and gender - includes new race/ethnicity and award level categories” and then “Gender - 2009-10 to current year”).
6. Select all the years you want data for.
7. Select qualifying variables:
   • You want to select BOTH first and second major, because you almost certainly want to count graduates who double-majored, whether it was officially their “first” or “second” major.
   • For CIP codes, select the CIP codes that you want to compare with. These might be just the same ones that Beloit uses, or you may want to include some other CIP codes that Beloit doesn’t offer, but you think are comparable.
   • Select the award level you want to look at, which is almost certainly Bachelor’s degree, since that’s the only award level Beloit offers.
8. Select if you want total men, total women, and/or total overall.
9. Click to Continue (at top of page).
10. Continue again.
11. Pick if you want long names or short names, download form, etc.
12. Download – the data will have one row per comparison school and will be wide by everything you selected. You may want to reformat or relabel the data to make it easier to use.

(If these instructions don’t work, let us know! IPEDS might change the system from time to time.)

You may have more “data” than you think you do, already within your department. Resources that some departments keep that might be useful sources of data for your department include:

• Samples of student work. Reviewing and evaluating samples of student work from introductory courses might answer questions your department has about how and if student learning outcomes are being met when students are first exposed to your discipline. Reviewing and evaluation samples of student work from capstone courses might answer questions about what students know or can do by the end of their time in your program or at the college.
• Departmental records about what alumni are doing. Many departments keep formal or informal records about their students’ activities after graduation, whether that be employment, education, or something else. What can you learn from these records?
• Course evaluation reports. Each department chair receives reports each semester showing departmental averages for courses in the department. Individual’s course evaluation reports might also be a resource, if permission is granted by the individuals teaching the courses.
• Advising and Career Day sessions, materials, or attendance records. Most departments have offered sessions during Advising and Career Days (formerly Advising Practicum) and Career Accelerator. What can you learn about your department or your students from what you offered, what they attended, and how the sessions went?
• Student Symposium or Beloit and Beyond Conference sessions or abstracts. Most departments have had students presenting at one or both symposia each year. How do these presentations relate to your departmental goals or to student learning outcomes?

• National Institute for Student Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) is a major player in the world of assessing student learning. The NILOA Searchable Publications is a library of learning outcomes assessment resources. They have a “New to Assessment?” page to help you get started.
• Wondering why it’s worth assessing student learning at all? Here’s a Statement of Principles about New Leadership for Student Learning and Accountability that might be helpful. 

  • Statement-of-principles-New-Leadership-Student-Learning-Accountability
• Wondering how to think about assessing student learning within courses, across courses, or elsewhere? Levels of Assessment: From the Student to the Institution might be a good place to start. The resource includes descriptions of five levels of assessment at the college level, including relevant questions and evidence. 

  • Levels-of-assessment-From-the-student-to-the-institution
• Wondering how the goals of a liberal education relate to the goals of your academic program? The Liberal Education and the Disciplines report provides examples from biochemistry, biology, classics, economics, modern languages, history, and religious studies.
• The Assessment Commons has lots and lots of resources that could be helpful to you. Poke around and see what you find, or search for links sorted by type of assessment, disciplinary focus, institution, and other sub-categories.

 

It’s not unusual for departments to identify important questions for their self assessment, and then find they do not have data to answer them. In these cases, departments may consider new data collections, either as one-time efforts or as part of an ongoing or regular effort. IRAP can help with:

• Identifying the data need. IRAP can help departments brainstorm, evaluate, and select various methods for answering the questions they are interested in.
• Establishing a method and schedule for collection. For example: a department might decide to begin collecting electronic samples of student work from three different introductory courses in order to answer questions after next year about the extent to which student learning outcomes are being met. IRAP can help departments think through what to collect, how to collect it, and what to do with it when they have it.
• Survey design or technology. For example, a department might decide to survey its graduates as a one-time exercise, to answer questions about how majors put their departmental learning into practice in their post-Beloit lives. IRAP can help departments think through technological options for surveying students, support the department in getting contact information for alumni, and provide advice on question wording.