Updates

Assessment is about Discovery

Cathy Barrett at Wayne State University uses the analogy of program assessment being like planning a journey with Google Maps. You need to know where you are starting, where you hope to end up, and any potential roadblocks along the way.  Similarly, program assessment provides tools for being reflective about what kinds of skills our […]

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NSSE: National Survey of Student Engagement

The University of Maine will be participating in the National Survey of Student Engagement this spring.  This survey, administered to first-year and senior students, seeks information on their participation in programs and activities, time and effort put into their studies, and their perceptions of various aspects of their experience at UMaine. Information from this important […]

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Important Dates for Online Student Evaluations of Teaching – Spring 2020

All important dates as well as other online evaluation resources can be found here: https://umaine.edu/oira/faculty-services/online-course-evaluations/ Important SET Dates for Spring 2020 The following online student evaluations of teaching event dates apply to standard full-semester courses at UMaine and UMM. Please visit the OIRA website for dates that apply to shorter courses. Question Personalization (Faculty add […]

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Blue Online Evaluation of Teaching Response Rates for Fall 2019

Approximately 70% of courses at UMaine have adopted online student evaluations of teaching using the Blue system as of fall 2019. Overall response rates are at 53.7%, which is common for online evaluations However, there is room for improvement. UMaine encourages providing in-class time for the completion of evaluations, something that other institutions have found […]

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Navigate Update

Navigate implementation is in full swing as we enter the spring semester! Throughout the summer and fall, the student app was heavily promoted to first-year students.  This spring, the Content and Promotion team is creating new content intended to engage sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This content will include information about the Student Symposium, career fairs, […]

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Explore Retention and Graduation Rates with Interactive Data Dashboard

This month OIRA introduces our fourth interactive data dashboard highlighting retention and graduation rates for first-time, full-time students. This is our first dashboard that drills down to the college level.  We have provided two filters related to the students’ first major: One that filters  on STEM/not STEM and a second that allows you to select […]

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Assessment Goes to Grad

We have been enjoying getting to know our UMaine graduate programs better this fall!  UMaine has had an organized system for undergraduate program assessment for a number of years, and we are working toward a similar system for our graduate-level programs.  We will be piloting graduate program assessment plan writing with two UMaineGOLD graduate programs: […]

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No reason to be BLUE about these numbers!

In fact, we are really impressed with the greater-than-expected voluntary increase in the number of units and courses on campus giving student evaluations of teaching online in Blue! As of Fall 2019 73% of all UMaine lecture, labs and seminar classes are being evaluated in Blue and 68% of all academic units are using Blue […]

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Navigate

The Navigate teams are wrapping up a very successful semester of pilots and we have several people to thank for their great work. Julia McGuire from the School of Biology and Ecology and Todd Zoroya and Jennifer Tyne from Math and Statistics participated in the first pilot of progress reports and early alerts in the […]

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Welcome to the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment Newsletter

Welcome to the first Office of Institutional Research and Assessment (OIRA) newsletter. OIRA exists to support the university community in the areas of planning, assessment, and decision-making by providing timely, accurate, and meaningful information to advance the university’s mission and values.  OIRA was formed in January 2019 as the merger of the former Office of […]

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