Weekly Report
January 15, 2016
The Office of Planning and Assessment reports its weekly activities and contributions toward Texas Tech
University’s institutional effectiveness efforts.
OUTCOME 1: Texas Tech will be found in compliance with all external accrediting agencies and State
of Texas mandates.
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OPA reviewed internal Substantive Change documentation and reporting procedures. OPA will
meet internally with selected staff each month to discuss monthly reports from Academic Council,
Board of Regents meeting minutes, THECB notifications, and other issues related to Substantive
Change documentation and procedures.
Since the initial submission to SACSCOC and the THECB regarding the assessment plan for the Core
Curriculum, a number of revisions to the assessment plan have ensued. OPA met with Genevieve
Durham-DeCesaro to discuss these revisions and to ensure that documentation is accurate. Once
the revisions have been adequately documented, assessment evidence will be entered into the Core
Curriculum TracDat accounts. OPA will work with Genevieve Durham-DeCesaro to maintain these
accounts appropriately. In addition, another potential opportunity resulted from this meeting: OPA
will present institutional learning outcomes that will complement the Core Curriculum. These
learning outcomes are intended to support THECB requirements, SACSCOC requirements, as well as
the TX60x30 Strategic Plan.
OPA is reviewing documentation on disciplinary accreditation, known as Accreditation Across
Campus (AAC), to determine which departments need to update information. This information is
reported in the SACSCOC report. Upon initial review, twelve departments need to update AAC
information and six departments will be reaccredited in 2016. OPA is discussing a strategy to work
with these departments to ensure documentation is up-to-date. To view how OPA manages
Accreditation Across Campus, go to https://www.depts.ttu.edu/opa/campus_accredidation/campusaccreditation_2015.php.
The first Support Service Level (SSL) Institutional Effectiveness Committee meeting was January 12.
This was an initial meeting and was limited to orienting the members to the need for the committee
and an overview of future activity. The committee will meet within the next few months to review
submitted reports and the evaluation rubric that will be used to assess evidence. The following
individuals were present:
Office of Planning and AssessmentLibraryAdministration and FinanceEnrollment ManagementResearchUndergraduate Education and Student Affairs-
Craig Morton & Libby Spradlin
Sheila Hoover
Sharon Williamson & Kent Meredith
Ethan Logan
Kathleen Harris
Wes Condray & Tara Miller
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Community EngagementHeather Martinez
To ensure that Department Chairs remain engaged with academic assessment, OPA staff regularly
meet with Department Chairs to provide assessment consultation and share information.
Date
Name of
Chair
Department
Primary issues addressed
12-17-15
Michael Orth
Animal and
Food Science
1-6-16
Mark Wallace
NRM
1-7-16
Keith Dye
VPA
1-11-16
Rattikorn
Hewett
Computer
Science
1-13-16
Michael
Giesselmann
Electrical
Engineering
1-13-16
Phil Johnson
Agricultural
Economics
1-13-16
Charles Klein
Landscape
Architecture
Dr. Orth shared that the department has revised all new degree
program learning outcomes. Therefore, the 15-16 assessment report
will reflect an improved assessment plan. Dr. Orth also shared that
the department has implemented a new strategic plan with
measurable strategic goals.
Met with Dr. Wallace and Maggie Zebracka. Maggie continues to be
the primary point of contact for assessment. Jennifer will reach out
to Maggie to offer TracDat training after Spring 2016 courses begin.
Dr. Dye requested TracDat training, so that he can begin entering Fall
2015 assessment data. Dye received training on 1-7-16. Dye is going
to update degree program coordinators in all VPA degree program
accounts.
Dr. Hewett requested that Mary Valdez receive TracDat training.
Valdez to receive training on January 26. Hewett said that
assessment procedures are currently in place, and the department
will continue to follow the revised assessment schedule they
implemented in Spring 2015. Hewett requested that Hughes speak at
the department’s Faculty Retreat on January 20. Meeting is
scheduled for January 20.
Dr. Giesselmann indicated that the department will continue to
follow its assessment plan and corresponding assessment rotation.
Giesselmann asked for an acknowledgment letter that he will include
in his post-tenure review packet. Hughes emailed this letter on 1-1516.
Dr. Johnson requested TracDat training, and he expressed frustration
that he could not access the “old” version of TracDat. Hughes has
contacted DeeAnn Pruitt to schedule a customized training session
with Dr. Johnson on the latest TracDat upgrade.
Mr. Klein was mostly interested in how to align reporting
expectations for the university with disciplinary accreditation. They
recently went through their most recent, but would like to use this
opportunity to strengthen documentation for both. We additionally
discussed the possibility of iPortfolios and strategic planning
consultations.
DigitalMeasures Activity:
Number of Records Added and Edited in the Last...
(Number of
Logins)
8 Hours
1 Day
2 Days
Activities
Database 237
933
2,298
University
(110,735)
•
1 Week
1 Month
6 Months
1 Year
6,121
12,022
30,025
76,561
Quality Enhancement Plan: Communicating In a Global Society Weekly Update:
o OPA is working with Gary Smith, the QEP Steering Committee Chair, on numerous administrative
issues including OPA’s support with the SACSCOC Monitoring Report response for the QEP,
assistance with the QEP Director position, and other Steering Committee activity.
o OPA researched the administration of the Global Perspectives Inventory (GPI) Survey. The
following information is immediately relevant:
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GPI requires that the institution must designate an individual as the administrator. Libby
Spradlin is the designated staff member since she will handle the administration.
The cost for the GPI is $700-$2500, depending on how many students take the assessment.
Students go to the GPI website and enter a code that we are given by GPI.
There are 60 items that takes about 15-20 minutes to complete.
Since this will likely be administered through TechAnnounce, a designated sample size is
difficult to predict, however, a response rate of 10% would be adequate (10% of the
approximately 8,500 graduating students is 850).
OUTCOME 2: The Office of Planning and Assessment will contribute to the Office of the Provost’s
institutional planning processes.
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Dr. Kathy Austin requested faculty productivity data to update the Strategic Planning Update Draft
for the President’s Retreat and Board of Regents meeting in late January and early February. The
report for productivity data included university, college, and department/ unit level. Faculty are still
entering their annual review data; therefore, data are incomplete. It is estimated that only about
25% of faculty members have fully entered their data for annual reporting. In addition to a full
report, the following information was reported:
Papers/Pubs (rev/Ref):
Paper/Pubs (other):
Creative/Performance (juried):
Creative/Performance (Other):
Books/Book Chapters (Rev/Ref):
Books/Book Chapters (Other):
International and National Presentations:
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663
610
121
434 (non-juried)
80
54
534
2016 CAAP testing will begin January 26, beginning with the Writing Skills module. The Math
module will begin February 16. OPA is offering a CAAP luncheon next Friday, January 22 to discuss
the CAAP. Seven instructors have confirmed that they will attend. OPA still needs to identify
additional courses for the Math module to ensure sample size goals are met. CAAP materials for the
first module have been ordered and organization of the materials will begin next week.
OPA submitted Raiders Engaged data to Dr. Birgit Green last Friday. She submitted the numbers on
Monday, January 11. OPA met with Dr. Green to review the data and prepare for the next
administration. A 2015 Raiders Engaged Report will be available later this semester. After OPA has
a chance to review the data, a specific date will be provided. Additionally, OPA met with Dr. Darryl
James to review the data and discuss the “cleaning” process.
There have been a number of advancements with iPortfolios over the past week:
o OPA is preparing for the second year of the iPortfolio pilot. OPA met with Angela Mariani Smith
and Sarai Brinker from Music last week to discuss their potential involvement. This week, OPA
followed up with them to discuss future meetings. This is in addition to other potential partners
that have emerged over the past few weeks, such as Media & Communications and
Architecture. OPA will report on potential new partners as it becomes more certain that a
department will be involved.
o OPA has reached out to a student who has entered some excellent work onto iPortfolio to
inquire whether he would be interested in becoming a student assistant in our office. After
completing the formal application process, he will begin working 10 hours a week to assist with
iPortfolio development. The position will require the student to develop an exemplar portfolio,
provide feedback about his experiences with it, and assist with presentations when available.
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A new PowerPoint has been prepared explaining how iPortfolio advances the TTU Core
Curriculum. This might be used when explaining iPortfolio to potential faculty members who
could become involved with the project, etc. A PDF version is available upon request.
There were 39 new views of iPortfolio informational vides since Jan. 7, for a total of 269 views.
OUTCOME 3: The Office of Planning and Assessment will continually monitor the university’s
compliance with laws, policy statements, and policies deriving from the State of Texas, THECB, and
SACSCOC
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THECB: The Texas Core Curriculum Application Guide was published in November 2015 and was
recently made available online.
OUTCOME 4: Texas Tech University faculty and staff will be well-prepared to meet OPA’s faculty
credentialing, assessment, and strategic plan expectations
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All TracDat accounts were evaluated last week. This week, the data was reviewed for missing
information or errors. The data will now be used to generate college level reports. This will likely
take a couple of weeks to complete, but by the end of next week programs will be contacted to
discuss results with an OPA staff member.
TracDat User Accounts have been updated to the “User Admin” setting. Adjustments to account
settings will be made periodically as the need arises.
OPA works annually with the ORS to upload grant productivity. This should be complete by the end
of next week.
An appendix to the College of Education’s DigitalMeasures accounts was created that will provide
unique reports about faculty activity.
OPA met with the Graduate School to discuss pulling grade outcomes for the PPI cohorts. Once the
information is received it will be put into the required spreadsheets and submitted to ETS.
OPA discussed a request from Dr. Randy McBee related to DigitalMeasures features. One of the
enhancements is immediately available, assigning R Numbers to accounts. However, OPA will work
with Dr. McBee to provide consultation with the other requests.
Student Union & Activities sought out consultation to discuss measuring student employee learning
outcomes. OPA met with SU&A leadership on January 11. This will likely be an ongoing consultation.
In addition to direct contributions toward the departmental goals, OPA continues to focus on continuous
improvement measures.
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A scholarship FOP titled Student Based Incentives has been created to manage multiple incentive
opportunities for students. The FOP was created in response to an iPortfolio scholarship that was
granted. However, there are other institutional assessments that require incentives. OPA expects
this FOP will be very beneficial.
Katie Randolph’s last day is Friday, January 15, 2016. The Office of Planning and Assessment would
like to formally thank Katie for the time she has been with OPA. Her contributions during the
SACSCOC reaffirmation process, the implementation of TracDat 5 (not to mention her ongoing work
with all TracDat activity), and her leadership with the West Texas Assessment Conference was
invaluable. Her presence will be missed, but her impact will continue for many years.
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