Office of Institutional Research and Assessment

SWAAC, the System-Wide Academic Assessment Committee, comprising assessment staff, interested faculty and administrators from across the UMS, is charged with finding and sharing ways to assist programs in measuring student learning and implementing change based on the results of assessment. On Oct 15, 2025 we will be providing our third annual system-wide workshop. This year’s […]

Please join us in person for lunch and a showcase of work accomplished by programs that received mini-grant funds last year to improve or kickstart their program assessment process. We will have presentations from Special Education, University Studies, Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Nursing. Lunch tickets to the Bear’s Den will be provided! Our hope […]

Previously due at the end of June in the final year of each 3-year cycle, the three-year program assessment deadline now falls a year later, at the end of June in the year after data collection is complete. This change, made at the request of faculty, provides a full academic year for reflection on assessment […]

Heather Pixley – The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) is pleased to welcome Heather S. Pixley to the University of Maine as our new Assessment and Evaluation Specialist. In her role, Heather will provide assessment support to more than 150 graduate degree programs and facilitate qualitative research for program improvement within UMS Transforms. […]

In recent months, OIRA has made a number of updates to the static reports available on our website. Below, you will find a brief overview of the updated reports: 1. First-Time Non-Retained Students Report (NEW) 2. Degrees Conferred 3. Student Credit Hours 4. First-Time Undergraduate NonYield Report 5. Transfer Undergraduate NonYield Report Please contact Deb […]

Faculty Senate Motion SM 24011 (Apr 2024) established a new process for ongoing review and revision of the Core rubrics that serves as the primary assessment tool for the Core curriculum. This revised process is necessary to ensure the rubrics function as a meaningful tool for measuring learning specified in the Core learning outcomes. The […]

OIRA, in collaboration with the Office of Student Success & Innovation, has launched the UMaine Student Experience & Feedback Survey, a new tool designed to better understand why some students do not continue their studies at UMaine or UMaine Machias. The survey provides students who have stopped out, withdrawn, or otherwise discontinued enrollment with an […]

New to program assessment? In need of a refresher? Please join us for the Program Assessment Overview presentation (via Zoom) on Nov 3 (12-1PM). We will give an overview of the main components of a robust program assessment plan and provide resources to get you started. There will be time for questions and discussion so […]

This fall is the first full semester of Core Curriculum assessment. All but four categories will be assessed.  The four categories that are currently paused for assessment, as we revise rubrics are: Writing Intensive, Science, Cultural Diversity and International Perspectives and Western Cultural Traditions. There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work over the summer […]

A required upgrade to the Blue portal was completed in early September. The landing page looks different, but all your key tasks and reports are still available. We recommend using the Tasks and Reports buttons at the top of the page to see all your active tasks (Question Personalization and Response Rate Monitoring), as well […]