Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
Day: 10-17-2012
Pre-meeting sessions called to order at 3:03 PM by President Wilma Dulin.
Education Research & Data Center (Katie Weaver Randall)
ERDC gave a presentation in which they talked about their background as an organization, the various
data sources they utilize, and what their overall goal is. The most relevant issue of the day was ERDC’s
interest in the RPC’s input on what the content should be for their CTC Feedback Reports. They actively
sought suggestions at the meeting and indicated that RPC members could email to them later.
Mark Macias is going to facilitate the collective determination of what RPC members want the ERDC to
research.
Data Inventory.xlsx
ERDC Supporting
Documents.pdf
2012_draftRenton_k
wr.pptx
MRTE
Carmen updated RPC members with the progress MRTE has made since the Spring RPC meeting. What
MRTE is and what its purpose is was defined specifically. The main focus of the presentation was a
demonstration of how MRTE will be used once it’s fully online. Carmen showed RPC members how to
put together a query using the MRTE database. An important advantage of the new MRTE system will
be that CTCs will get standardized, longitudinal reports on how their students do at 4 year institutions.
An important caveat for using MRTE is that the data is constantly getting updated. As a result, pulling
MRTE data into local data warehouses is not recommended.
MRTEData for
RPC.xlsx
Day: 10-18-2012
The RPC Meeting was called to order by President Wilma Dulin at 8:12 AM.
Jean Hernandez addressed RPC as WACTC liaison. She discussed why she was at the Fall RPC meeting,
how WACTC meetings function, as well as what many of the WACTC committees do. She comes to RPC
meetings to keep RPC informed with regards to what WACTC is doing.
Update on Commission work
Wilma then gave an overview of what topics the RPC’s work at this meeting will focus on such as the
new SAI model and how that plays into our work plan. A key difference between WARP and RPC is that
all members don’t just represent their colleges anymore.
Data Governance
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
Eva’s presentation focused on topics such as what exactly data governance is, what issues data
governance deals with, how high level decisions on data field definitions can influence the way data is
applied at the institution level. The usefulness of data at the institution level is heavily influenced by
good data governance.
Eva Smith's Data
Governance 101 RPC with speaker notes.pptx
Carmen circulated a Data Task Force Proposal to RPC to formalize a Data Governance Program. The
document explained why we needed a formal data governance program, how the program came
together, and how this program would work. Further discussion - Carmen indicated that all the other
commissions were on board with the formation of this program. There is a legitimate concern from
some about the amount of work that will be needed to be done; the implementation of this program
will need to be coordinated with CTClink as some fields will be re-engineered completely.
Data Governance
Information.pdf
Update from SBCTC
(Handouts are in the PDF at the end of this section)
David Prince: He had a handout - Research Team Areas. The handout showed who at the State Board
was working on what data. David advised new members to check with peers and/or the people on
Research Team list if they have questions concerning one of these research areas. Student achievement
awards will come out soon – based off of previous model. FTE enrollments go down? College won’t be
penalized, alternative rule in place – points per student is how this is determined. This rule is described
in this spreadsheert-
pts per student
handout.xlsx
Tina Bloomer: Handout: Short Certificate Study will pursue questions such as - What value does our
system present in light of free online courses? What is the value of short certs? What need are they
meeting? Some certs don’t add any value. How does this relate to SAI? How will these be used in SAI?
This study will have representation from RPC on it. RPC exec will assist in identifying these people.
Links to past research on short term certificateshttp://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/Certificates.FullReport.061812.pdf
http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1143
Darby: She indicated that technical assistance with SAI main is her job. She helps show to link what we
do on our campus to Student Achievement. She also works on academic year report which is completed
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
but needs to be reviewed before it will be published. Completed chapters will be up by the end of
October.
Carmen: she had a handout- academic EPC guideline sheet. All colleges currently have their own system
for tracking these academic programs, standard codes are needed. EPC codes will need to be used for
academic programs in the future, and they need to be standardized. The implementation of this schema
could possibly impact codes developed uniquely for a particular college. This list has not been widely
circulated yet. 2012-13 is the learning year; next year will be the official first year that the codes will be
used.
SB Documents.pdf
SAI Update
David Prince, Summer Kenesson, Maureen Pettitt, Darby Kaikkonen, and Ty Jones
This advisory group will introduce a proposal at the end of October 2012. 2012-13 will likely be the
learning year for the SAI model. RPC Members reviewed this proposal and then asked questions. The
new SAI Proposal (changes to current framework) is in the PDF below. There was also a Guiding
Principles for articulating the SAI model handout. This handout included both initial principles and the
principles that guided the 2012 revision. More focus in latest iteration on policy goal. The primary
purpose of this session was to help RPC members prepare for explaining the changes to their campuses
in what will likely be a learning year. One of the biggest changes is that the new SAI model will use
cohorts.
An important point regarding the creation of the SAI funding pool was discussed during this session.
Larger colleges put more money into the pool than smaller colleges as how much a college puts in is
determined by college size. When a method of rewarding money to colleges is used that does not take
into account college size, the system becomes unfair. Larger colleges put more money at risk than
smaller colleges and yet do not incur any advantage in winning their money back. This is one of the main
drawbacks of using points per student to determine how much SAI funding a college gets.
Current year use will use old system to determine funds; however, early next year RPC members will get
to see their points in the new system.
SAI Documents.pdf
Burning Issues
RPC members identified some burning issues, concerns, or content areas they wanted to discuss or see
covered at future RPC meetings. Topics listed included items such as:
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
Orientation for new RPC members, retention measures and strategies, SQL training, SPSS/multiple
regression workshops, value metric for short term certificates, institutional indicator benchmarking
workshop, and accountability programs and systems.
Committee meetings
Individual RPC committees met in the afternoon on Thursday. Committees would later report out on
their activity during the RPC business meeting on Friday.
Team Foundation Server
Chris and Russ facilitated a conversation on communication. The WARP listserv, Researchers listserv,
and TFS. Russ indicated that the TFS is currently problematic and that a committee is exploring the
future of the website. There is no immediate timeline for when the TFS will be improved. They are
dealing with issues such as1. Where the site should be hosted?
2. Improved password access
3. How to get it used by most of RPC?
4. Collaboration tool. What will we need to be able to do it with?
5. What kind of communication do we need?
Ideas from RPC Members at the Meeting: encrypted college to college communication (not RPC
specific?), results of the efficiency study (general information on how research activities within the
state), keep it all in one place to make easier for critical mass to use the TFS, informational repository?,
notification of when new information is added, flexibility for communication with other groups (external
to RPC), storing documents/links/information online, email notification of changes, project management
tools,
*Russ took notes on the ideas put forth by RPC members
Liaison from RPC to ITC? They have meetings every other month. There are many issues discussed at ITC
that RPC would be interested in.
ODS update- combining existing ODSs into a statewide ODS. RPC workgroup needed to help them
identify needed datasets so that it will be useful to all RPC members. Operational Data Store is a data
pump (different from the data warehouse which is like a series of data snapshots) to populate a data
warehouse. Not all data needs will be met by CTClink. It’s critical to know what data we’ll need at the
local level.
Day: 10-19-2012
RPC Business Meeting was called to order at 9:45 AM by President Wilma Dulin.
Roll – Attached below is the attendance for the 2012 Fall RPC Business meeting.
Roll Call for 2012
RPC Business Meeting.xlsx
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
Approval of minutes – The 2012 Spring RPC minutes were approved with one change to the
treasurer’s report.
Treasurer’s Report - Starr Bernhardt presented the Treasurer’s report. Revenue for the Fall RPC
Meeting was $4,575 with 61 people attending. Food services for the Fall Meeting were $2906. Two
travel grants of $200 each were awarded for this meeting. Total revenues increased by $1,227 at the
conclusion of the Fall Meeting. There are approximately $7154 dollars in total RPC revenue right now.
Liaison and/or representation reports
Tonya – WSSSC task force, LGBT Registration.
-Tonya updated members on the process to allow people to register as LGBT. Eventually,
students will be able to self-report their sexual orientation and their sexual identity. Survey expertise
from other colleges in writing the orientation questions (sexual orientation and gender expression) is
welcomed by Tonya. Adding these questions to the registration process for CTCs & to account for it in
the ERP will not be a trivial amount of work.
LGBTQ SSTaskForce
Report 9-19-12.docx
Data governance task force
-The process of forming this committee is moving forward. An additional point to add to
yesterday’s report on this group is that the RPC bylaws will need to be changed to allow for standing
committees. For now, the Data Governance Task Force is an appointed committee. Susan Maxwell (Clark
College) and Carmen (SBCTC) are co-chairs.
ERDC
-Mark described the new, more formalized ERDC data request process. The form will soon be
available to RPC members online. RPC ideas for ERDC research projects will be something that RPC
should discuss as a group, agree on, and send to ERDC. RPC should develop an internal process for
coordinating research even without the ERDC data. RPC members should email their ERDC research
ideas to Mark Macias.
SAI Advisory committee
-This committee’s final meeting will be on Oct 29th. Recommendation to presidents for the new
SAI model will be determined at that meeting.
Committee Reports
Accountability
Chair Maureen Pettitt reported. This committee is in the midst of two projects. The first is exploring
accountability systems and programs in order to develop a template. Student achievement is the
second project. This project involves answering questions about changes in SAI points, how to dig down
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
and answer why an observed SAI trend takes place. They are using the existing framework and not the
newly proposed model for this project.
Accountability_Qualit
y Committee-Oct-8-2012.docx
Accreditation
Chair Jim Mulik reported. There was lots of discussion about the suspension of the need for a
year five report during their committee meeting. The year five report was cancelled because there
aren’t enough evaluators for it. Additional discussion was around the core themes and indicators of
achievement. Several Colleges’ strategic plans now revolve around core themes in order to build
efficiency. How are performance thresholds for Indicators set at other colleges? This could be a good
area for professional development. A bench marking workshop could be a helpful item to include for
future RPC meetings. There was also some discussion on the lack of consistency across accreditation
evaluators.
RPC Meeting
Accreditation Committee Notes 10-18-2012 - Final.doc
Communications
Chair Chris Johnson reported. This committee discussed communication and getting information
that should be shared with all those who need to know. What activities of other commissions should be
shared with RPC members? Another discussion item was a survey of RPC members of what their
expertise is. RPC members could use this list to find out who could help them with a particular IR
problem that their dealing with. The committee also discussed how much training should be done at our
meetings.
Data Mart
Chair Mark Macias reported. Currently, the lack of a common data source is frustrating and has resulted
in this committee revamping their purpose –
1. Identify and prioritize common needs over most/all colleges. Some needs unique to
collaborating colleges
2. Create specifications for data mart. Identifying a unique IR need and then seeing what tables
we’ll need, fields, data element definitions. That needs to be done with colleges who are using
system. Not sure of what the next step should be. This may need to be vetted with the Data
Governance Taskforce.
3. Early warning – uneven technology across system colleges. Some colleges may need a hosted
solution so they can participate.
Data Mart Committee
Notes Fall 2012.docx
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Fall 2012 Research and Planning Commission Meeting Notes
Renton Community Technical College
October 17th-19th, 2012
Data Stewards
Chair Cynthia reported. This committee’s focus is on elements such as codes, business rules, and
appropriate use of data. They convey this information to membership in a variety of ways.
Committee work plan in light of development of Data Governance Task Force:
-The development of a list of fields where RPC members have a vested interest – does the field
get used for federal reporting, grants, SBCTC reports, etc.? This process will be extensive and take some
time. The list will represent the essential fields that we can’t live without.
-This committee is also inviting other RPC members who are not on their committee to work
with them on their projects.
RPC Data Stewards
Minutes.docx
Other RPC Business
RPC Recommendations to WACTC Ed Services or other groups
There are no recommendations pending. The recommendation process will be more formalized in the
future.
RPC Bylaws
An amendment to the RPC bylaws that will allow standing committees was announced. The actual vote
on whether or not to adopt the amendment will take place later on in the current academic year.
Appointment for vacant Exec Positions
Maureen Pettitt will no longer serve as president elect because she is now working on a part time basis
with the State Board. Chris Johnson has been appointed to take her place.
Joe Montgomery will be the contact person for RPC members who are interested in running for a
position on RPC exec.
Winter Conference Planning
The winter meeting will be held March 27th through the 29th. The spring meeting will be held in June.
The date for the spring meeting will be prior to president’s retreat, and after spring quarter but before
summer quarter begins. The June date will allow for RPC to meet after major decisions made by other
commissions/groups have already been made.
Business meeting was concluded at 11:24
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