1. CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES FOR DATA COLLECTION Wendy Y. Carter, Robert Williams, Renetta G. Tull, Janet C. Rutledge University of Maryland Baltimore County

2. Commonalities in the Annual CGS & AGEP Data Requests PhD Completion New Fall PhD Students All PhD Student Enrollees Number of PhD Recipients PhD Candidates

3. Differences in Annual CGS & AGEP Data Requests Number of students from each cohort who left:  With /wo a Masters Degree  After achieving Candidacy  Transferred out  Stopped out  Continuing  Status unknown  Fall Applications  Fall Admits  New Fall Graduate Enrollees  New Fall Masters Enrollees  No. of ALL Graduate Student Enrollees  No. of ALL Masters Enrollees  No. of Masters Degree Recipients  PhD Recipient Plans CGS ATTRITION AGEP PhD & MASTERS

4. Matching Our Programs to Different Taxonomies PROGCGSAGEP COMPUTER SCIENGRCOMPUTER ENGR MEESPHYSCEARTH, ATMOS & OCEAN CHEM ENGRENGR MECH ENGRENGR ELEC ENGRENGR ENVIR & CIVL ENGRENGR LANG LIT CULTUREHUMANITIESNOT APPLICABLE BIOLLIFESCIBIO MOLECULAR BOPLIFESCIBIO BIOCHEMLIFESCICHEM NACSLIFESCIINTERDISCIP MATH STATMATH CHEMPHYSCCHEM COMPUTER SCIPHYSCCOMPUTER SCI HUMAN CTR COMPPHYSCCOMPUTER SCI INFO SYSTPHYSCCOMPUTER SCI ATMOS PHYSPHYSCEARTH, ATMOS & OCEAN GEO SCIPHYSCEARTH, ATMOS & OCEAN APPHPHYSCOTHER PHYSCI HUMAM SVC PSYCHSOCSCINOT APPLICABLE GERONTOLOGYSOCSCIOTHER SOC SCI PUBL POLYSOCSCIOTHER SOC SCI APPLIED DEV PSYSOCSCIPSYCH

5. 60 CGS Demographic Templates Broad Categories (6) Gender M, F, UKN (3) RACE Am Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, White, Other (6)INTERNATIONAL TOTAL No. of Templates 1.Engineering36110 2.Humanities36110 3.Life Sciences36110 4.Mathematics36110 5.Physical Sciences36110 6.Social Sciences36110 60

6. CGS TEMPLATES 60 Templates for PhD Completion 25 Templates for PhD Attrition = 85 Templates

7. 120 Demographic Data Entry Points

8. AGEP TEMPLATES 13 Broad Categories 12 Student Categories = 156 Templates

9. Workload Challenges CGS & AGEP  Entering data into multiple worksheets increases human error & requires many work hours.  Even with broad categories; Race, Gender, Citizenship, Year-- potential violation of confidentiality issues exist.  Difficulty in recycling the data for internal purposes.  When there is personnel turnover recreation of the data is difficult.  With new system migration to People Soft requires a recreation of the process of data mining again.  Low response rates for exit surveys.

10. Solutions for CGS PhD Exit Survey Low Response Rate  Tie to graduation process & Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED).  Send out timely reminders.  Mail out with SED.  Encourage students to fill out both surveys online.  Put the link to survey on Graduate School’s website in the list of requirements for graduation.

11. Solutions for CGS PhD Exit Survey for Non- Completers  Make department staff aware of the survey and the withdrawal form.  Encourage students to fill out a withdrawal form.  If they fill out the withdrawal form, conduct a short phone interview and ask if they would be willing to fill out the PhD Exit Survey.  For students who are dismissed the challenge still remains.

12. Opportunities: Lessons Learned & Value Added  Moved from using Frozen data (snapshot) to Live data.  Improved our data quality & our data collection.  Graduate departments became better stewards of their data.  Provides checks & balances of current 3 stand alone  SIS  Progression Graduation databases  Graduate Assistants  Departments are kept informed about their Completion Rates, Attrition Rates, & Graduation Rates.  Helped us in planning for the conversion to PeopleSoft.

13. Contact Information:  Wendy Y. Carter, Ph.D. drcarter@umbc.edudrcarter@umbc.edu  Robert Williams robwill@umbc.edurobwill@umbc.edu  Renetta G. Tull, Ph.D. rtull@umbc.edurtull@umbc.edu