October 2023 Newsletter

Institutional Research (IR) Data Fellows Program

About the Data Fellows Program The IR Data Fellows Program is a year-long program designed to expand data usage by implementing measures that facilitate the effective integration of data into planning and decision making across campus. It will provide staff, faculty, and administrators an opportunity to both familiarize themselves with campus data resources and collaborate […]

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Undergraduate Assessment Update 

Last year was a very busy reporting year for undergraduate programs.  Colleges that received COVID postponements of 3-year assessment reports and those on their regular schedule all submitted reports in summer and fall of 2022. We thank the Assessment Advisory Board (AAB) for their diligent work to review and provide feedback to these programs to […]

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Graduate Assessment Update

Graduate programs have made strong progress over the past several months, with  92% of graduate degree programs engaging with the program assessment process. In the past 6 months, OIRA staff have provided feedback on assessment plans for 38 degree programs, curriculum maps for 63 degree programs, and program learning outcomes for 20 programs.  All graduate […]

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Gen Ed Assessment

UMaine has been engaged with assessing our general education curriculum since 2018. In fall 2021, Faculty Senate passed a motion to reconsider our methods for assessing general education due to concerns about alignment and usability of data from the original process. Additionally, UMaine has been awarded a Davis Educational Foundation grant to pilot this new […]

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Assessment Mini Grant Showcase

The 2022/23 Assessment Mini-Grant Showcase took place on September 26. Each awardee presented their projects and findings, followed by a time of questions and discussion. The awardees and projects were as follows:  Ryan Dippre (ENG): “College Composition Rubric Revision” Kate Ruskin (EES) and presented by Holly White (EES Graduate Student): “Revising a Novel Tool for […]

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Introducing the Weekly Enrollment Dashboard

The Office of Institutional Research and Assessment is now providing weekly enrollment reports through a new Weekly Enrollment Dashboard, which is tailored for UMaine and UMM administrators, deans, and associate deans. This dynamic resource provides interactive enrollment and retention data for the most recent two fall terms, with updates every Monday. Since its launch, the […]

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First Destination Update

First Destination is a project to collect data about what recent graduates are doing after graduation – whether employment, graduate school, military, or service. Recent undergraduate alumni from all seven campuses in the University of Maine System received invitations to participate in the long form of the First Destination survey on August 28th. Graduates were […]

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Graduate Assistant Introductions

We are pleased and excited to welcome four new Graduate Assistants to our department!  Here are their brief biographies and the different projects to which they are contributing: Allison Brown will be working on the general education assessment pilot and is funded by the Davis Family Education Foundation Grant.  I have lived in Connecticut my entire […]

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Student Evaluations of Teaching Update

All summer SET reports were released to faculty and departments the week of September 11 for both UM and UMM.  In the spring, we convened a small faculty pilot group to get feedback on a new PowerBI dashboard that provides faculty longitudinal access to their SET results across semesters. Using that feedback, the dashboard was […]

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Latest Updates to OIRA Static Reports

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: Degrees Conferred Provides the total number of degrees conferred by College, Academic Unit, Major or Minor, and Level. In the 2022-2023 academic year, UMaine awarded 2,895 […]

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