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Savannah State
University I. Guiding Values, Beliefs, Assumptions, Attitudes: SSu’s office of IRP seeks to enact a culture of humane but skeptical inquiry and a climate of open information in its daily work. Following is a list of primary professional attitudes:
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Institutional Research is retrospective planning. II. Vision Statement: An effective contemporary office of institutional research and planning will enable the university community to conduct its operations in a mature and informed climate of collegial discourse with all participants fully informed in a timely way of all data, ideas, and perspectives relevant to their planning and decision-making requirements. Data will be available to inform discourse on all current issues and at each level of aggregation important for organizational unit planning. Plans and decisions university-wide will never be delayed for want of organizational information. III. Clients, Patrons, or Customers Identified: SSU’s office of Institutional Research is intended primarily to support internal University planning and decision-making with timely and accurate information and, where ever sought, professional or technical advice. Accordingly, its “clients” include the following stakeholders, listed in priority order:
1. Office of the President External requests for data are honored to the extent that they are explicitly sponsored by one or more of the above stakeholders. In cases of conflicting requests or request volume exceeding response capacity, the work cue is influenced by the above priority order among sponsoring stakeholder. (See “IRP Activities Elaborated,” below.) IV. Functions, Services, & Tasks Regularly Provided: Aside from developing data, information, and planning tools in response to shifting ad hoc University requirements, a number of specific activities and projects are on-going and assumed as a matter of course: 1. IPEDS Reporting: A series of individual mandated annual federal reports quantitatively document most aspects of university operations, including enrollment & student; budget & finances, faculty & staff, wages & salaries, library affairs, graduation rates, institutional characteristics, etc. for the federal Department of Education. Clustered in the period Nov-Mar, they absorb approximately1 fte of professional staff time during this period. [Annual impact: 5/12 or 0.42 FTE] 2. Institutional e-Fact Book: The office has developed and is attempting to complete an extensive e-fact book, with tables, graphs, and verbal descriptions to fully describe the university’s base-line operations. The book (anticipated at >200 pages; or "displays"), still under development, is currently available on line to the www as well as within the university. From time to time, selected excerpts from this site are printed and distributed for special occasions. [Many institutions providing such a comprehensive document in paper form report that developing and maintaining it occupies approximately 1 fte of professional staff time, year round. At SSU, we do it "on the fly" as we complete various studies. [Annual impact: 1.00 fte] 3. Student Evaluation of Instruction: In Fall, 1999, the VPAA transferred to IRP responsibility for completing all tasks associated with surveying and collecting students’ evaluation of instruction (university-wide) each term and charged IRP to develop both individual faculty reports and unit summary analysis of that material. The data collection project absorbs approximately 1 fte/month for each iteration. Evaluation or analysis of findings requires further time. [Annual impact: 3/12 or 0.25 FTE.] 4. Georgia University System Research Liaison: IRP has been designated as the agent responsible for responding to information requests and consultation by the Chancellor’s office of research & planning in Atlanta. Over the past sevferal years, the responsibility has required, on average, approximately 15 days/year to satisfy, including 3-5 days attending state-wide meetings. As a result of work here, SSU’s IRP officer has been invited to participate further in a smaller IPEDS implementation group by the BOR office of planning and evaluation. [Annual impact: 15/260 or 0.06 FTE.] 5. Southern Association [SACS] Liaison & Support: IRP is the principle support unit for SACS relations and institutional self-study/accreditation reporting. While in most years, this function would absorb 2-3 days of reporting and four days attending the SACS annual meeting, the burden is much heavier for two years preceding a SACS team visit. In two years, based on informal survey of practices in similar institutions, professional capacity should be expanded by c. 0.75 FTE. [Normal Annual impact: 5/260, or 0.02 FTE.] 6. Institutional Effectiveness Support: The IRP officer has been designated as the principle supportive role for the university-wide Committee on Institutional Effectiveness, an organization co-chaired by two senior faculty members. Duties consequent to that role are relatively undefined and sporadic. They can rise to very heavy duirng projects. Includes much work posting materials to web site for committee review. [Annual impact: 10/260 or 0.04 FTE.] 7. Strategic Planning Support: The IRP officer is identified as the principle support staff for the university-wide Strategic Planning function, a function, in turn, assigned to the President’s cabinet. The IRP officer participated as a member of the President’s cabinet from August, 1997 through October, 1998. Subsequently, he has participated only by specific invitation. The change in assignment results from Presidential directive. Consequently, since fall, 1998, the principle planning function of the IRP office has been to provide materials and structure for grass-roots level planning efforts. [Annual impact: 15/260, or 0.06 FTE.] 8. External Data Requests: Universities enjoy a host of external publishers, firms and agencies (aside from government agencies) requesting and/or demanding information. At SSU, these requests are often routed to IRP though they are sometimes accommodated by the Admissions or Public Relations offices. Typically such requests include completing externally designed survey instruments–sometimes quite lengthy-- rather than sharing in-house production runs or tables. Such requests arrive at the rate of 2-3 per week. Providing data to some of these inquiries appears marginally useful to the university. Of growing concern to the IR community nationally is the ever expanding cost to universities of subsidizing private industry by completing these survey instruments with university manpower. [If SSU were to respond individually to all such requests (which it does not, through lack of time), it is estimated that the annual impact would be approximately 0.50 FTE at the present time.] 9. Common Data Set and FAQ: In place of responding individually to all external requests for data, at SSU, IRP has developed and maintains a Common Data Set and FAQ report for rapid response to external requests for information. It follows closely a model pioneered by a consortium the College Board, Peterson’s, and US News & World Report. Upon inquiry, the 30-page report can be made available quickly through mail or sent on-line. The CDS/FAQ differs from the Institutional Fact Book by providing data for a more limited number of items and only for the past few years instead of displaying long term trends. It lacks important comparable and bench mark data that is found in the Fact Book and used for internal planning. Most requesters are not fully satisfied with this report and press to have the university complete their individual survey instruments in order to provide them a competitive advantage over their competitors. [Annual impact: 0.1 FTE] V. Competitors Identified: Other university offices could perform similar services or functions for clients if the IRP office were unable to do so. In the absence of an IRP office, information functions reasonably could be dis-aggregated as follows:
a. Student related information:
Registrar. Alternatively, external vendors could be found similarly able to process data, but costs might prove excessive and internal staff would still have to provide the raw data. Some standard information sets can be (and are) provided from raw data by university system computer, research, and planning staff located in Atlanta and Athens, but this data is typically aggregated at the University-wide level. VI. Comparative Advantage: The advantage to the university in supporting a discrete local IRP office is that data sets can be developed reflecting contexts and issues important for decision-making and planning and user-friendly information crafted from them. While other offices would be able to disseminate raw data from their various collections, the likelihood is that data element definitions could vary by office and data may not link well across functions. Similarly, without further processing, it would likely not be aggregated at suitable levels of analysis to support particular planning efforts. It also is found that operations offices frequently are unable to verify the reliability and validity of their data, either for want of time or techniques. Hence, the justification for supporting an office of institutional research and planning, with advanced statistical and information handling capacity, is that it is able to add value to raw data by developing contexts and links between raw data, specific planning needs, and current educational issues. Further, an IRP office is able to develop a collection of historic snap-shots of frozen data extracted at specific intervals from live data files. From this collection, useful trend analysis can be developed. Consequently, a typical research office should be able to more easily respond to random ad hoc requests for data configured in unusual ways than normally would be true of operational offices working with complex live data collections and canned programs or scripts. Without this IRP service, links, analysis, and synthesis would have to be made either by the clients and information-users themselves or the operations officers. While some institutions do and have operated this way, the practice is on the decline nationally. VII. IRP Mission or Purpose Statement: The IRP mission is twofold. First, IRP objectively studies and clearly informs stakeholders about current University affairs and operations by communicating accurate and timely institutional data in the context of contemporary higher education issues, practices, and theory. Second, IRP facilitates and serves as an internal technical consultant to University stakeholders as they develop their strategic and action plans and continuously evaluate their operating effectiveness. VIII. IRP Positioning Statement: SSU stakeholders will learn to believe that IRP is the single most authoritative and accurate source of comprehensive university information as well as the most solid professional guide to social, organizational, and action research and planning available to them anywhere. This belief will be fostered by timeliness, accuracy, objectivity, and easy collegiality in both relationships and production. The strong credibility and effectiveness of the office will grow as a result of its reliable performance, the demonstrated utility of its output, and the humane and professional inter-personal relations practiced by its staff. IX. Unit Cost (Budget) & Production (Output): A.Resource Absorption View: At SSU, the total budget available for IRP functions has tripled over the past fifteen years. The office has been outfitted at least twice with technology supplied by Title III federal funds in addition to base operations funded by the state-supplied general fund. However, the current revenue base may be somewhat unstable as a result of declining University resources, shifting institutional priorities, and certain dysfunctional business office practices. IRP Annual Expenditures by Budget Category: 1986-2000
* A full-time secretarial position was transferred to the IRP office 12/97. The budget line item was formally re-allocated the IRP budget in fiscal year 1998-99. ** The IRP Title III project (extending from 10/97 through 9/98) represented additional resources outside the University’s general fund. Although expenditures did not correspond with the university’s normal budget year, the expenditures are reflected here in the 97-98 year for summary purposes. ***1999-2000 discretionary expenses appear to have grown over the previous year by $4,500. The appearance is an erroneous artifact of the business office practice of holding invoices received between Apr-Jun for payment from the following year’s budget allocation. Thus, the 99-00 budget was charged approximately $6000 for prior year expenses while the 98-99 budget carried a surplus of some $6000 that was returned to the state. #2001-2002 Title III project represented additional resources outside the University's general fund. Project funds enabled acquiring long-term ownership over statistical software for IRP office and consultation to develop automated data feeds from legacy systems. B. Cost of Production: It is inappropriate to calculate discrete research and planning “cost per unit of production” since the vast majority of staff time has been absorbed in developing and verifying institutional data collections and data bases underlying all research & planning activities. In the short run and in place of this accounting logic, an estimate of time allocation to various activities has been documented in terms of actual fte time-on-task, function by function. In place of unit cost of production, IRP relies on annual comparative time absorption to judge efficiency in responding to its various tasks. X. Base Performance (Effectiveness) Indicators: Five types of performance indicators for judging the basic effectiveness of an organizational unit are commonly employed. Set out below is a discussion of these concepts applied to the work of IRP. A. Cost Efficiency: Unlike many units on campus, IRP work is highly varied, discontinuous, often unpredictable, and yet accumulative. Data from which reports and studies are garnered is generally derived from data sources maintained by other offices that vary greatly both in responsiveness to data requests and in the reliability of their data. Consequently, data retrieval, validation, and correction time are difficult to anticipate or estimate accurately. Further, data sifted laboriously from diverse sources may inform a wide assortment of subsequent studies and reports. It is impossible to logically allocate the cost of collecting a particular data set among all the diverse projects that later might be informed by that data. Finally, because of the varied nature of the work, it is difficult to establish a viable concept of a “unit of production”–a concept that assumes a basic similarity and conformity of output, as in an assembly line. Therefore, the notion of an abstract “cost per unit of production” is not useful for IRP. Instead, the office is developing a work-flow log from which time efficiency and cost analysis of basic functions and discrete tasks can be calculated and compared across time. When completed, the log should permit documenting “What is the marginal institutional cost required to complete the IPEDS enrollment report?” or “What is the average turn-around time (and cost) to fulfill a specific data request from a staff member?” In place of a “unit cost of production” concept the IRP office is developing an average cost of production for separate classes of activities that then may be compared over time. B. Time Efficiency: IRP is developing a data base work-flow log in which projects, tasks, and activities are to be tracked and production time recorded by task, function, and staff. Additionally, the file tracks time lags in projects resulting from information voids or delays occasioned when IRP staff requests other offices to supply raw data from which reports or analyses may be generated. From this data file, a variety of reports can be prepared to account for costs of production, staff productivity, project impact, average turn-around time, etc. C. Customer Satisfaction: IRP has developed a “IRP Effectiveness Survey” instrument that it asks explicit “customers” to complete annually. The instrument, attached here as an appendix, was distributed during the Week of May 15, 2000, to all members of the campus community with whom the IRP office had official relations or contact. Further, it has included survey items relating to IRP operations into general staff survey instruments in use on campus. Findings from these sources are included in IRP annual self-study and strategic plan and used to inform the development of goals for subsequent planning cycles. D. Benchmark Standards: Industry standards or norms for IRP functions and tasks are not yet well developed across the “industry.” No reliable source for comparability data has been identified. Consequently, SSU’s IRP officer is advocating in relevant professional organizations that a cross-institutional study should be undertaken to identify and popularize or publish such norms. At present, it appears likely that CAPS (Consortium for Assessment and Planning Support), an organization in which SSU’s IRP officer is a founding member, may undertake the project soon. XI. Initiative Responsiveness: In recent years, various expectations and/or demands have been placed upon the university by different agents and agencies requiring important change and development. Several of these initiatives heavily impact IRP, as follows:
A. SACS Accreditation Self Study XII: Constraints & Limits: IRP is locked in a dynamic relationship with other offices and units of the University as well as a select number of relevant professional organizations. IRP depends on other units for raw data to study and report and does so in response to information needs of still other units and personnel. In this respect IRP is among the least self-contained units in the university. These myriad dependency linkages establish structural constraints, limits, and inefficiencies when compared, for example, to a self-contained social research facility that might freely develop research according to its own agenda. These inefficiencies are magnified as other units and personnel generally incline to off-load and demand operational clerical work from IRP rather than to husband IRP time for actual institutional research and planning work. At SSU, there is little appreciation of a difference between compliance reporting and researching; between processing and planning. Specific circumstances do generate dysfunctional constraints that serve to impede the most effective and efficient operation of IRP, as follows: A. University Business and Finance Operations: Day-to-day business operations of the university have been inadequate with the result that an inordinate quantity of IRP staff time is absorbed in coping with and working to resolve basic business problems. Budget updates are inaccurate, encumbrances and expenditures are not properly synchronized, delays in paying invoices result both in charges accruing to the wrong budget year and unnecessary penalties being incurred, reimbursements for personal expenditures for institutional business are tardy, purchases made by other units are misapplied to IRP’s budget, etc. etc. Such practices result in IRP being deprived of the use of some portion of its budget allocation. The collective impact of these factors is that IRP has learned to maintain its own internal set of “books” in order to properly manage and track its own business affairs and then allocates further time to reconcile internal records with university accounting records. It is estimated that approximately 0.60 staff FTE is absorbed in this non-productive work. B. Manual data access: Important data required by IRP is maintained in large “main-frame” dynamic data bases by other offices. This data has been available to IRP only through files captured electronically by OIIT in Athens and eventually returned to campus or via hard-copy print-outs supplied by other offices that require re-keying into desk-top data bases. Although an effective approach to linking IRP to much of this data (ODBC) was identified, recommended, and approved by the President and his cabinet in November, 1997, SSU’s computer support staff was reluctant to enable the linkage out of concern for maintaining data integrity. The computer support establishment would have preferred to maintain control over data by supplying flat files generated by Cobol scripts upon individual request. The link to the Registrar’s data was finally made operational in April, 2000 (a 2.5 year delay), and the IRP office is now busily identifying file attributes and developing access protocols. It is estimated that 0.75 FTE in annual professional labor has been absorbed since October, 1997, in manually developing redundant data files for IRP use in research. During the Spring, 2002, automated systems are being developed to access this data and build desk-top archive files on a repetitive basis internally. C. Computer Hardware/Network Support: By its very nature, IRP is fully dependent on computer hardware. If a computer is “down”, IRP is effectively out of work. But, as hardware platforms become more complex, it is difficult for users to maintain their own equipment. Users, then, either increasingly depend on computer technical support or allocate a portion of their professional time to upgrading their own technical support capacity. But, at SSU the computer support staff is over-tasked (and/or under-manned) with personnel who are unable to keep their technical skills developed to the fast-moving cutting edge as a result of their own overwhelming work load. Accordingly, SSU technicians often learn solutions to technical problems on the fly as they encounter new situations and are walked through “fixes” by vendors’ help desks and service units. A further constraint is that when and if a computer technician does manage to develop technical skills approximating cutting edge, he or she is soon lured away with doubled salaries in industry. SSU has not developed competitive salaries in this arena to attract and keep the necessary technical staff. Presently, for example, SSU’s hardware and network platform is Microsoft dependent. The institution would be well served to have on staff a certified Microsoft applications and hardware engineer. Yet such a person would command a salary in the 60-70 K range in the private sector while SSU hires technical computer support folks in the 25-35 K range. The structural problem results in considerable production time being lost. (It should be emphasized that the intent of this explanation is not to place “blame” on hard-working individuals employed in computer services; they are, like others, hapless victims of the structured situation.) XIII. Organizational Integration & Overlap: From the perspective of IRP, seven functions appear ripe candidates for overall organizational re-design or re-engineering on campus. Re-working four functions would advantage the entire organization; three others would greatly facilitate IRP work. In present form, they seem to require excessive labor to satisfy and/or serve as occasions for unproductive redundancy and inefficiency. To this extent, present work arrangements and task allocation patterns contribute to a swollen and under-productive staff size.
XIV. Objectives: High-priority developmental goals or objectives have been established for IRP to better accomplish SSU’s mission. These goals are justified as they contribute either to (a.) Improving performance indicators, (b.) Enhancing the initiative responses, (c.) Cultivating comparative advantage over competitors, or (d.) Strengthening organizational integration or eliminate overlap in some fashion
XV. Action Plans & Effectiveness Measures: IRP tasks and objectives may be conveniently categorized as one of four types of activity and identifying appropriate effectiveness measures for each depends upon which type of activity a task or objective may be. Effectiveness measures are collected and filed with each task upon completion and will be tabulated and reported with the annual self-study.
XVI: Organizational Implications: Goals identified above will impact other organizational units as they will need to arrange task assignment to complete their part of processes in a timely way. IRP is prepared to counsel with individuals as necessary to assist them in mastering suitable data base techniques. Enrollment Management: Registrar’s and computer service staff could be impacted by as much as 1.5 days / year in order to supply electronic copies of CIR and SIRS data files each term to IRP. Human Resources: Single human resources staff member (Dawn Cone) could be impacted by 4-6 weeks/year during the period August-October to update personnel files in anticipation of fall reporting deadlines. Athletic Department: Athletic department clerical support staff could be impacted by 5-10 days/year to update data files during the period Sept/Oct relating to student athletes in anticipation of Fall completion rate reporting deadlines. Athletic department needs to acquire skilled clerical staff to accomplish task. Registrar: Data space is reserved in the Banner system for local student addresses in addition to permanent mailing addresses. This table, however, is not rigorously maintained so that reports based upon it are flawed. If the Registrar were to collect and maintain this data, students could be reached in a more timely away while at school. It is unknown how labor intensive this effort might be. XVII. Action Plans (Tactics): A. RESEARCHING: 1. Access Data Direct. Continue to work with and press university and system staff to gain eventual state-of-the-art direct access to student, personnel, and financial data on line from dynamic data base files located in offices across the university. (OBDC Connectivity to relational data bases is the goal; batch COBOL programs are obsolete as they inherently cannot remain current with present staffing levels in the face of changing systems and file structures.) Access to Oracle registration tables was established 4/00. OIIT is now developing the FIS data system in preparation for conversion to People Soft at which time access will be possible to faculty data as approved by the BOR. 2. Build Confidential Electronic Files. Develop state-of-the-art technical capacity to deliver just-in-time information and look-up tables with security and reliability to specified target audiences as needed in a paperless format in conjunction with the Planning web site. (Example: A convenient look-up table of the most recent faculty evaluations placed on-line for reference by Deans, VP, and Pres.) Project has been shelved for the present since it appears first, that SSU staff are not yet comfortable accessing data in this fashion and prefer paper reports and second, that the institution’s network backbone is not yet reliable enough to depend upon it for full functionality. 3. Prepare Institutional Reports. Arrange for the timely and systematic annual preparation and dissemination of IPEDS & other pre-defined official reports & documents to stakeholders by documenting university operations in standard nation-wide formats. All reports have been completed before final deadlines of DOE for two years. Student and staff-related reports have been twice later than BOR deadlines occasionally as a result of lengthy data-access issues. [A combination of ODBC connectivity to Banner tables and direct transfer of SIRS and CIR files from the registrar would eliminate delays in student reports. The Human Resources office timely maintenance of all data elements in the staff payroll file and computer services transfer of a copy of that file to IRP would eliminate delay in completing staff-related reports.] 4. Create Common Data Set. Develop an annual customized “Common Data Set” fully describing Savannah State University from IPEDS report data to efficiently disseminate a comprehensive picture of the University to constituents and stakeholders whose inquiries are “unofficial.” (Will replace the labor-intensive process of completing a multitude of various ad-hoc inquiries like those demanded by Newsweek, Chronicle, ACT, NAFEO, Department of Commerce, College Board, etc.) CDS will serve internal constituents with adequate data for typical grant applications, public relations, etc. and form the basis of a paper edition of the institutional Fact Book. Basic Development project completed. Report now needs only annual updating and integration into the intra-net web site. 5. Improve Faculty Evaluation. Optimize the design, collection, analysis, and dissemination of meaningful data & information relating to the annual faculty evaluation system and process. (Encouraging faculty to revise its evaluation instrument.) Implementation system and basic analysis routines have been developed; reporting conventions are still under review and faculty input is being solicited. 6. Publish Data. Judiciously mirror relevant portions of formal reports and other information to internal stakeholders by developing, publishing, and monitoring an intra-net Planning Web Site containing a collection of information responding to eight key institutional questions. Projects targeted for development (1999-2000?) are:
A. Recruiting (Applicant) Study:
B. Entering Freshman Study:
C. Retention/Attrition Study
D. Graduation Rate Study
E. Graduate Success Rates
E. Graduate Student Study
F. Faculty & Staff Study
G. Facility Utilization Study [Note: Many of these issues are addressed with the publication of the institutional fact book.] 7. Promote Inquiry Mode. Adopt a soft “inquiry mode” of dialogue and raise questions about assumptions and conclusions wherever feasible, encouraging folks to gather empirical data to support positions, assertions, conclusions, or judgments. In progress, though the result is suspect since the stance sometimes raises suspicions among university staff. B. PLANNING: 1. Publish Plans. Collect and publish policy, planning, & research documents relevant to University planning in convenient planning web site for easy stakeholder access. Default models for unit self-studies and strategic plans have been developed and distributed across the university. Training sessions have been held. Many units have not responded with their plans within the university’s scheduled timetable. 2. Foster Planning. Use Committee on Institutional Effectiveness to sponsor and foster development of missions, strategic plans, & empirically-derived effectiveness evaluations for each defined institutional process and academic program within the university. Committee is large and relatively ineffective with low levels of participation. 3. Support Accreditation. Assist academic & support units to meet and document compliance with published accreditation standards by serving as liaison with SACS and serving on the SACS Steering Committee (Wright/Goings’ SACS Steering Committee) A data base table including all SACS “must” statements has been developed and placed on the IRP file server with a space for a committee chair, a responsible administrator, and two other individuals selected to “sign off” on each compliance in addition to the chair of the SACS project, Dr. Wright. 4. Integrate Staff Records. Influence & coach the Human Resource Department to develop & maintain a single, accurate, complete, & up-to-date system of University personnel records easily accessible by parties ranging from payroll to the state chancellor’s office (FIS). Ms Dawn Cone in HR has been designated as the individual responsible for this function. She has come to understand the importance of and is committed to maintaining the file. Her supervisor and department colleagues should be made more aware of the institutional importance of this assignment so that she is allowed time on task to complete the update work annually before November 1. New systems in place enable easily generating a flat-file to prepare and convey personnel data to IRP. Alternatively, the data could be accessed with the same ODBC technology that is now available for student records, but computer staff indicate they have not the ability to make this arrangement. 5. Review Programs. Participate in on-going academic program review and strategic planning activity. (Silver/O’Neill, Academic Program Review Committee) The basic program review inquiry and summary has been long completed but revisions are ongoing. The Savannah State program review process is becoming a model across the South. Its developers (Crow/O’Neill) have made presentations to the University of Georgia system Instructional Planning Committee, the University of Georgia system chief academic officers and Deans, and have conducted a workshop for the Southern Association of Institutional Research. Additionally, they are currently being sought for consultation by institutions in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Oregon. 6. Aid Task Forces. Participate with and support with relevant action-research studies university-wide problem-solving task forces reviewing key organizational issues and making recommendations for revising operations. Several university-wide projects have been supported in the past three years, as follows:
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