1. Student Achievement Dashboard: An enterprise solution for on-demand program evaluation
Taylor Brodner, Information Systems Specialist
Dan Carpenter, Executive Director of Student Success
Purdue University

2. Data-driven Decision Making
Is it ever good enough for a student affairs program to…
feel like it does good work?
have a long and respected tradition?
do things the way we’ve always done it?
Student affairs leaders and practitioners have to use quantitative evidence to…
demonstrate the value of the effort (and seek resources)
understand the correlation between effort and success indicators
“see” change occur (or not)
respond to questions of “return on investment”
As a student affairs leader, I am limited by…
my ability to analyze vast data sets
the fact that there are vast data sets
my need to turn data into a meaningful picture
time

3. Purpose and Audience Over 100 sources of student data on campus
Single source of official information
Enables self-reliance
Seamlessly combines data sets
Used to answer questions and make data-driven decisions
Intended for use by student affairs professionals and university decision makers

4. Student Achievement Dashboard
Includes
Custom cohorts
Graduation and retention rates
Average cumulative and semester GPA
Average term credits
Demographics
Course performance data

5. Creation Process Business Intelligence + Institutional Research
Requirements gathering
Prepare initial data set
Vet with focus groups or conduct individual interviews with intended users
Finalize and validate data
Implementation
Governance / security

6. Scenario 1
An Associate Dean in the College of Science needs to know the performance of first generation, 21st Century Scholars who are women in the College of Science for a grant proposal
Previous method:
Get list of 21st Century Scholars from the State and/or Financial Aid
Pull Registered Student Report (one semester at a time)
Compare 21st Century Scholar list to registered student list to find currently enrolled students
Filter by gender and college
Pull list of first generation students from Student Attribute Report (one semester at a time)
Compare previous list to first generation student list
Calculate average term and cumulative GPA for students
Repeat for as many semesters needed to determine performance
Alter retention and graduation pivot tables to create retention / graduation chart for this specific subset of students
Time spent: ~4 hours

8. Scenario 2
A donor requests the graduation and retention rates of Purdue Promise students vs 21st Century Scholar students vs Pell-eligible students vs all Purdue students
Previous Method:
Develop cohort lists of 21st Century Scholars by cohort by cross referencing State list and Financial Aid list, and running against frozen Census data
Pull Purdue Promise students by cohort from Student Success database
Partner with Financial Aid to obtain Pell-eligible students by cohort
Pull University Retention Report (one for each cohort)
Merge each University Retention Report to each 21st Century Scholar, Purdue Promise, and Pell-eligible cohort report
Create pivot tables in Excel to calculate graduation and retention rates (one pivot table per group of students per cohort – 24 pivot tables for this example)
Create step tables by typing numbers from pivot tables into a table
Time spent: ~8 hours

9. Donor Step Table

13. Scenario 3
The Director of Supplemental Instruction wants to know which courses Purdue Promise students are struggling in so that she knows which courses to target
Previous method:
Combine Purdue Promise student cohort lists after downloading from Student Success database
Run Registered Student list to determine which Purdue Promise students are currently enrolled and were enrolled for past few semester (have to run separately for each semester)
Run Grade Reports of all courses offered over the past few semesters
Merge Grade Report and Purdue Promise student list to find courses that Purdue Promise students are/were enrolled in
Calculate DFW rates for courses for students enrolled in Purdue Promise and compare to DFW rates of students who are not in Purdue Promise
Look at trends across time
Time spent: 8+ hours depending on depth of analysis

16. Student Achievement Dashboard: An enterprise solution for on-demand program evaluation
Taylor Brodner, Information Systems Specialist
Dan Carpenter, Executive Director of Student Success
Purdue University