About six months ago, my colleagues and I at StudentVoice thought it would be a good idea to “hit the road” and offer workshops for Member Campuses.  The intention was to educate our users about new capabilities and techniques, while at the same time create a forum for conversation around innovative ideas and assessment best practices.

I personally attended workshops in Long Island, Buffalo, and Toronto.  During these sessions, I kept finding myself thinking “we can do that?”  Just goes to show you even the co-founder doesn’t know everything!  The reality is, StudentVoice has progressed at such a fast pace that many of our users are not aware of all the tools available to them.  At the summation of one of the fall workshops, an attendee commented “I always thought StudentVoice was just about surveys.”   Hopefully the information below, which is a summary of sessions from the workshops, informs you about new ideas and possibilities for future assessment efforts with StudentVoice.

Assessment Planning
In order to make the most of the data you are working with, it is critical that you plan ahead.  Whether you are determining data requirements, mapping out future projects, or monitoring activity, StudentVoice can help.  Here’s some food for thought.

• Discuss plans with your StudentVoice Assessment Consultant
• Map out projects in the online StudentVoice project calendar
• Monitor activity using System Status tools (presented on Getting Started page after logging in)
  

Direct Assessment Measures

Incorporating direct measures into assessment practice is often a challenge.  One method of a direct measurement focused on during the recent assessment workshops was a rubric.  A rubric is the guide used to score performance assessments in a reliable, fair, and valid manner and is generally composed of dimensions for judging student performance and a scale for rating performances on each dimension.  

Opportunities for using rubrics include:

Contact your StudentVoice Assessment Consultant to:

• See examples of rubrics
• Structure a rubric based on your specific needs
• Make use of StudentVoice tools for scoring rubrics and reporting either aggregate or individual student performance data

Intelligent Outreach

StudentVoice has recently released technical capabilities that presents survey respondents with a customized results page based on their survey responses, and also provides designated faculty and staff with the ability to use those results to impact student success.  The use of this feature can help:

• Enhance retention efforts
• Use assessments as learning tools
• Provide faculty and staff with resources to guide conversations with students

Contact your StudentVoice Assessment Consultant to learn how to put the these capabilities into action at your campus.  This may include providing resources for academically at-risk students, helping undecided majors find resources, and advertising upcoming programs or events that may benefit students. 

Cross Project Reporting

The StudentVoice assessment platform can host custom assessments (i.e. web, PDA, and paper) , national studies (e.g., NSSE), and data from student information systems (SIS).  Cross project reporting is a feature that StudentVoice has designed to enable efficient analysis of multiple data sets in one interface.   The process for cross project reporting is simple.  Use the Add/Remove Questions tab in the Results screen to see projects that share common respondents and then generate data reports that cut across projects.

There are several immediate benefits to using cross project reporting with demographic data and results from assessments where students have consented to be identified. 

Student Panels

In the world of StudentVoice, a “panel” is a subset of identified respondents.  One application of panels is to create samples (e.g., first year, commuters, residents) of students ahead of time so they are ready to go for future assessments.  This approach can be helpful in safe guarding against survey fatigue.  Another use is to identify certain respondents to be included in a follow-up or longitudinal study.  StudentVoice has developed technology that makes it easier to create and use panels on a regular basis. 

Contact your Assessment Consultant or reference online help to learn more about how to setup and use panels.

Custom Benchmarking

In addition to benchmarking data against peer-like campuses, StudentVoice also supports internal benchmarking opportunities.  Here are examples of the types of custom benchmarking that were discussed at the recent assessment workshops.

Performance Indicators

Also referred to as “dashboard indicators,” “balanced scorecards,” or "metrics",  performance indicators focuses an organization on aspects of their programs and services important to its success.  They can also help determine if the organization is headed in the right direction.  Starting in September, StudentVoice released access to a performance indicator tool for all Member Campuses.  After logging in to www.studentvoice.com and navigating to the Get Started page, you will notice a new tab above announcements titled “Performance Indicators.”

The interface for creating and updating KPIs is very easy to use, and permits variable display settings and customizable access. 

StudentVoice is offering a webinar on the benefits and best practices of performance indicators.  More details including a sign up form are available at http://www.studentvoice.com/app/Training.

In conclusion and as that regional member meeting attendee said, StudentVoice is a great deal more than just surveys. We are already working on the next round of tools and services to continue to allow you to maximize your assessment efforts.

Michael

 

Regional Assessment Workshops in Buffalo, Toronto, Denver, and Dayton!

StudentVoice is hitting the road again for another round of regional assessment workshops.  Last Friday, October 2nd we kicked off the fall tour in Buffalo, New York for a “homecoming” of sorts at the University at Buffalo, where StudentVoice was launched nine years ago. Approximately 50 professionals from ten regional institutions participated.  

Led by StudentVoice Assessment Consultants, these workshops offer an insider’s view of recent advancements and the strategic partnerships that StudentVoice has fostered. In addition to an overview of how our solutions can enhance your institution’s assessment initiatives, you will benefit from sessions on assessment planning, rubrics as a tool for learning, new “advisor functionality,” and development of performance indicators.

This Friday, October 9th StudentVoice travels north of the border to Toronto for a workshop at the University of Toronto, Mississauga. The fall tour then heads to Metro State College of Denver, on Friday, October 16th and wraps up on Friday, October 30th in Dayton, Ohio at Wright State University.

There is no charge for attending the regional workshops.  Registration for the sessions in Denver and Dayton is still open.  I encourage you to sign up before it’s too late!

Michael

StudentVoice took to the road this past summer for regional workshops on the East Coast with a stop in the New York City region at Hofstra University.

 
John White, PhD, Director of Assessment Programs, talks about the iPod Touch application for mobile data collection.

On Wednesday, July 29, representatives from our assessment and campus relations departments will kick off the first leg of an East Coast tour of Member Campuses.  We anticipate more than 20 colleges and universities will attend these regional events, which include exciting StudentVoice announcements and mini-trainings as well as opportunities to connect with our staff and colleagues from other campuses.

Those in the D.C. area will visit us on our first stop at George Mason University.  Thursday, we’ll head north to Philly where our host is St. Joseph’s University.  The tour wraps up Friday, July 31  in the New York City region at Hofstra University.

StudentVoice assessment consultants will introduce new strategic features, advisor functionality, and benchmarking opportunities. We will also discuss the recent acquisition of the co-curricular management platform CollegiateLink, professional development and training webinars, and strategic partnerships such as the NASPA Assessment and Knowledge Consortium.

I’m looking forward to these workshops and hope to see you there.

Michael

Here at StudentVoice, we take pride in our capacity to network staff from different campuses for the purpose of sharing ideas and methods for assessment. For the past three years, StudentVoice has hosted an annual member meeting. This event has proven to be a valuable opportunity for StudentVoice users to meet their peers from other campuses and interact with our Assessment Consultants. However, the member meeting only occurs once a year and the experience is limited to the people that attend. In an effort to foster more routine communications and collaboration, StudentVoice has incorporated a "forum" feature into our recently updated website.

According to Webopedia (my go to online resource for techy terms) a forum is an online discussion group, in which participants with common interests (i.e. assessment) can exchange open messages. Odds are you have participated in or at least been exposed to a listserv. Think of a forum as a web-based listserv, where you can post an inquiry and your peers can post responses in a threadlike fashion.

StudentVoice has created a number of different forums at www.studentvoice.com to address specific topics of interest. When you get to our home page, click on the Community tab located in the upper left corner of the screen, and then select Forums in the menu revealed below.

I will create an example post so you can see how the process works. Let’s say I’m the Director of Student Support Programs and I’m interested in finding out how other campuses have assessed TRIO programs. Because my inquiry is related to Student Support Programs, I am going to select the Forum titled "Academic Assistance/Advising/Student Support Programs."

Once I am in the forum page, I will click on the “New Topic” button to post my inquiry.

In the Post New Topic screen, I have entered a subject line and message text. Also, at the bottom of the screen where it says “Options,” I checked the box to receive e-mail notifications when responses to my inquiry are posted.

Posting a reply is easy. All you have to do is navigate to my topic in the Academic Assistance/Advising/Student Support Programs forum and then click on the title of the topic.

On the following screen, select “Post Reply.”

Finally, type your reply in the message box and then click on the “Post” button at the bottom. That’s all there is to it!

I hope you found this blog to be helpful. If you have any comments or suggestions, please e-mail me at mweisman@studentvoice.com.