January 2022 Newsletter Archives - Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

Assessment Mini-Grant Awardees

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:57:48 +0000

Below is a brief description of each awardee’s assessment project.

Jane Puhlman, Communication Sciences and Disorders: CSD will be reorganizing their program assessment process and exploring the use of Brightspace for collecting and managing program assessment data.

Lynn Atkins, School of Biology and Ecology: SBE will be developing curriculum maps for each of the three disciplines in the school as well as developing rubrics to determine program effectiveness for each of the learning outcomes.

John Mascetta, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Advising Center: The CLAS Advising Center will be doing a comprehensive assessment of non-major first year seminars offered through CLAS.

Kate Ruskin, Ecology and Environmental Sciences Program: Kate will be creating a data entry and information-sharing portal for the assessment data gathered each year by the Ecology and Environmental Sciences (EES) program.

Learn more about the Assessment Mini-Grant Initiative here.

The post Assessment Mini-Grant Awardees appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Program Assessment Reports

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:57:07 +0000

All academic programs are in an iterative process of assessing their program learning outcomes. An official assessment report is due for each program every three years. This report includes data on all program learning outcomes and a 3-year assessment summary report. Annual reports are also expected from each program. These include any updated assessment data collected during a given academic year. Annual assessment information is submitted on .

The post Program Assessment Reports appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Student Evaluations of Teaching Update

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:56:33 +0000

Students in full-length semester courses this spring will receive their initial invitation to do their evaluations on Monday, April 18. The evaluations are open until the last day of classes (Apr 29). Instructors will also receive email instructions on how to monitor their response rates on April 18. If feasible, we recommend setting aside time in class to complete the evaluations, as that has shown to be an effective method for encouraging responses. Students can complete their evaluations on their phones, tablets or laptops.

We are implementing a new process for including courses in the SET process that started in the winter session. Instead of asking departmental administrative personnel to identify courses that should and should not be evaluated every semester, we will be using information already available in MaineStreet to identify courses. All courses will be evaluated with the following exceptions:

Independent Study (Course Component IND)
Thesis credits (Course Component THS)
Travel Abroad (Subject ABD)
Any additional courses with fewer than three students enrolled

If your department wishes to request an exception to the above rules for any of your courses please fill out the following form: .

For more information on this change please see the SET Policies and FAQ. Additional SET resources are available on the OIRA Faculty Services website. If these resources do not address your questions, please email Ryan Weatherbee (ryan.a.weatherbee@maine.edu) or Deb Allen (debra.allen@maine.edu).

The post Student Evaluations of Teaching Update appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Interactive Enrollment Dashboard

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:56:03 +0000

Our interactive data dashboards are in the process of being updated to a new, user-friendly format, with additional filters and content. The first update has now been published to our website to include fall 2021 enrollment data for 91�� and 91�� Machias. The dashboard is interactive with enrollment data for 91�� and 91�� Machias for the last 10 years.

View the Fall Enrollment Dashboard here.

New features include:

Filter Pane: Click on the filter icon on each page to view available data filters.
Info Pane: Click the info icon from any page for notes and data definitions.
Table View: Click the table icon from any page to view a table instead of a visual.
Maps: View enrollment by country, US State, or Maine county in an interactive map.

The post Interactive Enrollment Dashboard appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

OIRA Website Updates

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:55:30 +0000

The OIRA website contains a wealth of publicly available data reports. Most of our reports have been updated to include fall 2021 data, and we have begun incorporating data for our regional campus, 91�� Machias, into our reports.

91�� Machias data is now available in our Fall 21′ 91�� At-A-Glance report, Enrollment Headcount report, 91�� Machias Majors report, and our new fall enrollment dashboard.

For ease in navigation, the OIRA website now includes an index of publicly available reports at : /oira/report-index/

Reports are organized by topic and include all available reports from our website within one-click.

A new addition to our report inventory is an enrollment breakdown by race/ethnicity and sex for domestic and international students at 91�� and 91�� Machias.

Have a suggestion for a report or dashboard that you don’t see on our website? Email um.oira@maine.edu with your suggestions!

The post OIRA Website Updates appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Assessment Workshops

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:54:20 +0000

Our fall assessment workshop series came to a close in November with the session Using Assessment Data for Curriculum Conversations in which we had two faculty panelists join us to discuss their experiences. We would like to thank Amanda Albright Olsen from Earth and Climate Sciences and Susan Sullivan from the School of Food and Agriculture (and the current Associate Dean for Instruction, NFSA) for their time and insights into the ways assessment data have guided curriculum development in their departments. We think the audience greatly benefitted from what you shared. In general, the assessment workshop series was a success this year, with strong attendance at all sessions. We would also like to thank our other faculty partners who contributed as presenters this fall: Mark Haggerty (Honors College) for our learning outcomes workshop and Kelley Strout (School of Nursing) for our curriculum mapping workshop. If you were not able to attend the workshops in real-time we have recordings of most of them available on the OIRA assessment website.

The post Assessment Workshops appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.

Power BI Resources

Mon, 24 Jan 2022 13:53:58 +0000

As we expand our interactive dashboard offerings, both public and internal, we will continue to add resources to our help page: Power BI Help. Please contact Lisa Applegate (lisa.applegate@maine.edu) if you have questions not addressed on the help page.

The post Power BI Resources appeared first on Office of Institutional Research and Assessment.