1
JERRY LEGGE
ALLAN AYCOCK
JAN WHEELER
\
www.oap.uga.edu
UGA-GIT discussion May 15, 2013
UGA Timeline
2
Spring
2008
Spring
2006
Plan to meet compliance challenges
Late spring
Su08
2008
Compliance Audit
Fall08
Sp09
Su09
Fall09
Sp10
Narrative drafting, editing/system development
Assemble teams/
chairs:
Compliance
Charge Teams
Leadership
QEP
Su10
Sept
2010
Final drafts/approvals
Data snapshots
Submit CC!
SACSCOC orientation
of leaders
UGA Organization Structure
3

Office of Academic Planning



Leadership Team


n=38, selected for area expertise
Document Review Panel


n=10, chaired by President, included senior admins
Compliance Team


Clearly charged with responsibility, oversight, staffing
EITS team assigned to support
n=5, Associate Deans mostly
QEP Team

n=32, wide campus representation
Academic Planning commitment
4
Estimates of time allocated over two years:
 Associate
Provost – 40%
 Director of Assessment and Accreditation – 50%
 Associate Director of Accreditation – 100%
 Assistant to the Associate Provost – 40%
 Editor – all of 49% retire-rehire for ~1 year
 Two graduate assistants – 50% of half-time
assignments
Office of Institutional Research made reaffirmation
a top priority over two years
Technical Support
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EITS dedicated a small team to reaffirmation and
added resources as needed




Implemented commercial solution to store and manage
faculty activity data (Digital Measures)
Designed internal faculty and GTA/GLA credentialing
system to produce Faculty Roster
Designed internal system to manage planning and
assessment data (digital filing cabinet)
Designed internal system for the Compliance
Certification (static site using HTML, CSS, and JQuery.
Coda for HTML/CSS editing and Illustrator and Photoshop
for the icons and graphics)
Work Plan
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 Expertise—Compliance
 Large
Team
group of campus experts in the specific areas
addressed by the Principles (n=38)
 Chaired by former law school dean currently active
in university governance
 Reported to small SACSCOC Leadership Team (chaired
by the president)
 Working groups for areas needing focused attention
Work plan—working groups
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







Faculty Credentialing
Institutional Effectiveness
Advising
International Programs (drafted appendix)
Distance Education (drafted appendix)
Extended Campuses (drafted appendix)
Substantive Change
Document Review Panel
Work Plan—Process
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Developing compliance narratives
 Compliance
audit (assemble documentation)
 Drafting process (more documentation)
 Expert
in area or working group
 Resources and consultation with OAP staff
 Review
process (more documentation)
 OAP
staff, editor, Document Review Panel, Liaison,
Leadership Team
 Final
formatting
 Testing/QA/“slamming the doors”
Compliance Certification—Format
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UGA approach=everything
 Submitted
a printed, bound, multi-color
Compliance Certification (without supporting
documents)
 USB drive with Compliance Certification and all
supporting documents (except Faculty Roster)
 Online, password-protected access to
Compliance Certification and all supporting
documents and selected live web sites
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Compliance Certification—Key
Design Elements
UGA Approach
 pdf
format for supporting documentation
 highlighted
relevant portion of each supporting
document
 Footnotes
 Linked
in text with hover feature
directly to relevant page of document
 Searchable
document
 Document library
 Style guide
BOR roles
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
USG Policies related to compliance
 See
RACEA
crosswalkhttps://sites.google.com/site/raceares
ources/accreditation-resources/SACS-Resources

Financial Audit
 Timing

means this will be part of on-site review
BOR representative to meet with on-site
committee
 Plan
ahead
Communicating with campus
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UGA approach


Focused first on improving the learning environment –
compliance with the principles will flow from this
Highlighted the specific improvements made to policy and
practice having long-term benefits, for example

Faculty Activity Repository

Academic Planning System

Online syllabi availability


Instructor credentialing process—study abroad faculty,
GTAs/GLAs
Archive of useful documentation
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Major Compliance Issues: Full time
Faculty (2.8)
There is no formula for adequacy. How will you make
your unique case? What ratios and comparisons will you
use? How will you disaggregate the data?
UGA approach
•
•
•
•
•
Definition of full-time faculty and categories of faculty
Allocation of responsibilities for teaching, research, and service to
individual faculty
Support structures for faculty activities
Case for adequacy to carry out teaching, research, and service at the
institutional level
• Comparisons of student/faculty ratio with peers
• Comparison of class size with peers
• Processes to ensure ongoing adequacy (various review processes)
Then data at the college level, the department level, and for each
extended campus
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Major Compliance Issues: Full time
Faculty (2.8)—continued
New Challenge
Documenting adequacy at the program level
How will you define “program?”
Major Compliance Issues: Faculty
Credentials for Teaching Activity (3.7.1)
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How will you establish that every course taught
within the relevant time period was taught by
faculty qualified to teach that specific course?
UGA approach
• Established a comprehensive instructor of record policy
• Established required credentials policy for instructors of record
• Created a credentialing system for ongoing compliance with
policies
• Created a faculty activity repository using commercial software
• Prepared an electronic faculty roster with electronic access to:
• Faculty CV
• Detailed justification when needed
• Official course description and syllabus
• Transcript or other evidence of academic qualifications were not
available electronically
Faculty &
Course
databases for
rank info, list
of all courses
taught.
UGA Bulletin for detailed
course info, master
syllabus, & individual
syllabus
Final Product—UGA Faculty Roster
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FAR—Linked
CVs for all
faculty
Credentialing
System—entered by
associate dean;
also linked to CV
Text added
directly into
Roster by
associate
dean (cut &
paste from
CV)
Major Compliance Issues: Substantive
Change (3.12.1)
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How will you document that all substantive
changes have been identified and reported to
SACSCOC?
UGA approach
• Adopted and communicated internal policy about
identifying and reporting substantive changes
• Maintained record documenting decision-making
process for each potential substantive change
• Maintained record of all substantive changes
reported to SACSCOC
• Presented the policy, the decision making process,
and the record in the Compliance Certification
Major Compliance Issues: Institutional
Effectiveness—Educational Programs (3.3.1.1)
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Will you use a commercial product or an internally
developed solution?
Will your Compliance Certification present a
representative sample of degree/certificate programs
or present all programs?
UGA approach
• Created Academic Planning System internally
• Presented full evidence from a representative sample of
programs (assessment plans, student learning outcomes,
assessment results, and changes implemented for each
program)
• Defined “representative”
• Plus provided full online access to Academic Planning System
(all programs)
Resources
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Additional sample forms and process documents are
available at:
http://oap.uga.edu/about_oap/anatomy_2012
UGA’s Compliance Certification is open and online at:
https://sacs.uga.edu/
(also in the SACSCOC Resource Room)
Also consider:

RACEA
https://sites.google.com/site/racearesources/accreditati
on-resources/SACS-Resources
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Planning for Compliance
Thank you and good luck
Jerry Legge jlegge@uga.edu
Allan Aycock aaycock@uga.edu
Jan Wheeler jwheeler@uga.edu