Advisory Committee Meeting Notes, March 19, 1999

OHIO BOARD OF REGENTS

Advisory Committee Meeting Notes
March 19, 1999

Members Present

Chris Dalton, Senior Vice President for Finance, Bowling Green State University
Ralph Gutowski, Director, University Budget and Institutional Research, Miami University
Robert Hallier, Vice President, Business & Finance, Stark State College of Technology
Rosemary Jones, (Committee Chair), Director, Institutional Planning & Evaluation, Cuyahoga Community College
Bill Knight, Director, Institutional Research, Bowling Green State University
Daniel Koshute, Director, Research & Planning, Lakeland Community College, representing Wynette Barnard
Sue Lindsey, Director, Institutional Research, Cleveland State University, representing Marsha Krotseng
David Lindsley, (Committee Vice-Chair), Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, University of Toledo
Joan Patten, Research Associate, Institutional Planning & Research, Sinclair Community College
Nancy Scott, Vice President and Dean for Enrollment Management & Student Affairs, Kent State University
Darrell Winefordner, Assistant Vice President for Finance, Ohio University

Members Not Present

Sam Bassitt, Vice President for Instruction, Lima Technical College
Barbara DeYoung, Senior Budget Analyst, Ohio State University
Eric Kornau, Chief Information Officer, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College

Ohio Board of Regents (Regents) Staff Present

Chris Doll, Financial Data Area Analyst
Beverly Farmer, Administrator
Harold Horton, Director, Information Systems & Research
Jay Johnson, Manager, Enrollment Data Processing
Don Langford, Research Analyst
Andy Lechler, Senior Analyst
Mary Martin, Administrative Assistant
Stephanie McCann, Faculty-Staff Data Area Analyst
Diane Rings, Administrative Assistant
Jackie Seevers, Administrator
Rob Sheehan, Director, HEI Project

Guests

Sarah Williams, Inter-University Council
Nancy Zajano, Director, Legislative Office of Education Oversight

Handouts

Draft HEI Advisory Committee Meeting Notes, February 19, 1999
List of Institutions that Needed Extensions Per Range
Draft Authorization Forms for Campus Users, Regents Users, General Users, and Policies Regarding Access
HEI Query Training March 25-26, 1999
Current Information on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
General Purpose Data Queries Status Report

Agenda Review

Introduction of members, staff, and guests.

Approval of January 22 Meeting Notes

Committee approved the January 22, 1999 meeting notes with one change in formatting on page two.

Report on Liaison Training on February 26

Seevers informed the group that 55 people attended the query training on February 26, 1999 at Columbus State Community College.

Query Training on March 25 and 26

The query training was tentatively scheduled for four sessions, with each hands-on session lasting three hours. Sheehan informed the group that the training session from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. would be canceled on March 25, due to other commitments. Seevers said she would send an e-mail out so that any affected attendees could reschedule to another session. If campuses have a need for Regents staff to come to their campus, it will be done.

Jones thanked the Regents staff for the February training, but didn't know what to do with the draft authorization form. Because of Jones' questions about the authorization forms, Horton led a discussion about the forms.

Sheehan said now that Regents has completed four training sessions, the agency should be thinking ahead. When should training be scheduled again? Sheehan suggested a day with two sessions sometime in September, unless there is a tremendous demand for training sessions before then.

Formalization of Data Access and Dissemination Policies

Horton informed the group that the feedback he received on the authorization form was positive. Horton said there are three classes of users: Regents staff, general users, and campus users. Horton said he is prepared to make the form official if the group is in agreement. Liaisons will keep a form on file and a copy also will be kept at Regents. Scott suggested that liaisons should authorize approval of the form. Members suggested changes to pages one and two of the form. The authorization form is only for restricted data areas only.

Jones suggested adding a line on the form for liaison approval for specific authorizations. Members agreed with this change.

Sheehan explained to the group that they could not remove/delete people from the system. Martin can do this after campus representatives send her an e-mail with a list of individuals to be removed.

There was discussion about the removal of the word "draft" from the form and whether there is any liability to having it remain. Sheehan informed the group that the form was reviewed by the Chancellor, staff, and in the future it will be reviewed by the Board.

No further action on the draft form is required although Horton has since removed Social Security Numbers from the authorization form and replaced it with full name. The authorization form is a pdf document that can be printed, mailed, or faxed back to Regents. Horton and Martin are moving forward in creating some type of tracking/coding system. Martin will contact any institution that has not responded before the May 1 deadline.

General Query Update

Lechler informed the group that all queries using data from the current data submissions are defined. Some are already in production and the others will be in production sometime this spring. These are called Phase 1 Queries. More queries will be developed for the annual data submissions which will start in production this coming fall.

Sheehan demonstrated the mobility tracking query. Scott asked that if a student flags a privacy field, does it allow users to see their file? Sheehan said no.

Sheehan indicated that this query version should be further edited and posted somewhere conspicuously on the Web. It should be a summary (for external audiences) of the existing and planned queries. Lechler's draft was used during training, but it doesn't have enough narrative to be helpful to general audiences.

FERPA Update and Impact on Queries

Horton was informed by Ellen Campbell of FPCO (Family Policy Compliance Office) that Regents should not be transferring out graduate rates unless students give their permission. SHEEO representative Aline Russell informed Horton that Regents cannot share information about transfer tracking with other institutions. Horton has a meeting with a representative from OSU on FERPA clarity and what Regents, as well as institutions, can and can't do.

Jones said to do as much as possible with aggregate enrollments. She said Regents should develop a plan to get issues on a high priority list for resolution. Horton and Sheehan suggested masking SSNs within the spirit of the law and having written protection for them. Jones disagreed. Sheehan suggested a vote. Horton suggested masking IDs until further notice. More information is needed to make a better decision. The committee decided to hold off on a decision until the next meeting when more information is available.

Regents will revise mobility tracking to add gender, ethnicity, and program of study to the drill down, but will not open up the drill down capability until the next meeting or when more information is available. [Editor's Note: Since the meeting, HEI staff heard in query training that branch campuses wanted transfer tracking to be available at a campus level, rather than stop at the institution level. Kent State's Ashtabula campus wants to be able to track its students to another institution, or even to the Kent State main campus. This is feasible for concurrent enrollment, (Ashtabula branch and Main campus), transfer, degree/certificate, and alternative credit. The caveat on alternative credit is that the Alternative Credit (AC) file may not record transfer hours from a branch to its own main campus. Johnson is checking on existing primary edits for this. Programmers are working on opening up institution as a selector for all of these.]

Discussion of Full Time and Part time Faculty Survey

Langford informed the group that the survey of full-time faculty is complete and 2,800 faculty have responded. He is working on establishing value ranges and hopes to have a draft report for the next meeting. Langford said he hoped to convene a subcommittee during the next two to three months for the part-time faculty survey and is accepting suggestions for nominations to this subcommittee. Sheehan said the survey would be done in-house instead of using an outside source.

A report was given on the status of the full-time faculty survey. No action was required of this, but Lechler and Sheehan have been discussing the possibility of taking faculty survey data and putting them into a database with relational query capability. The thought is that Regents could issue a report with the highlights, but also make the data available to others with query capability.

Update on Inclusion of Private Colleges and Institutions

Horton informed the committee that Chancellor Chu is meeting with independent colleges on March 25 to ask for participation in HEI. He will be asking 10 of the largest schools to participate, with a phase-in process. A pilot program is expected for fall 1999 with production in spring 2000. He is asking that the institutions participate on a regular basis and commit to participate.

Annual Report from Campuses on Submission

Sheehan asked the committee if Regents should provide one report detailing statistics of file submissions. Gutowski suggested just sending one report to the liaisons only listing averages of the system. Lindsley thought the institutions could use the data and that it would be a good management tool.

Regents staff heard that if such a report is developed that it should only go to liaisons. It could be created as an Access or Excel chart with files down the side, terms across the top, and some measure of timeliness of submission in the cells. Johnson volunteered to develop such a report. If the report is created, it could be posted on the Web or developed into a query or report.

Course Completion/Award of Academic Credit Switch

Better clarification is needed. Award of Academic Credit (AC) file is effective fall 1999. Jones said course completion should be changed to course persistence. The committee did not like the idea of a version change.

Sheehan said there are no changes in distance learning courses.

The committee made a decision by consensus to clarify existing policy that Award of Academic Credit means simply that. It does not mean award leading to a degree, just that a course was completed in such a way that a grade resulting in credit was awarded. This would mean an N for Fs, incompletes, temporary grades, and dropped courses after the 15th day. Note that this field (Award of Academic Credit) does not speak in an unambiguous way to an academic outcome, nor does it address whether a student completed a course. The committee also said that genuine interest in course completion would best be met by two fields. Regents staff agreed to put this into proposal form and circulate it first to the Regents and then to the Advisory Committee.

Additional Items Discussed

HEI roll out of Version 1.1: In the interest of campus acceptability, the fall 1999 submission which HEI was referring to as version 1.1 was retitled Service Release 1.000001. Changes to date include: 1. addition of one new file (TM course file) with specs and time line still in progress; 2. addition of one data element to the POP field which would capture tuition waiver program; 3. retitling and redefinition of the POP field; 4. possible addition of field(s) to capture true course completions.

Personnel

Lindsley resigned his position as Vice Chair of the Committee to return to the University of Toledo in faculty status. Gutowski was elected the new Committee Vice-Chair.

CAS/DARS

A report was given on this with a request to keep the Advisory Committee informed.

The next Advisory Committee meeting will be May 21, 1999 at the Ohio Board of Regents, 30 East Broad Street, 36th. Floor, in the Board Room.

Meeting adjourned at 3:00 p.m.

Notes submitted by Mary Martin.

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Last updated May 25, 1999