Technology Solutions for Tracking Student Progress

Mark J T Smith

Purdue University Graduate School

December 2014

Special thanks to Meng Deng, Mark Jaeger,Anne Lacy, Cyndi Lynch,Linda Mason, Nichole Barr

Land-grant

University

Five campuses

100+ degree

programs

10,000+ students

Purdue University

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis &Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Plan of Study

Submitted electronically The plan: Outlines the courses to be

completed for the degreeLists the faculty members

on Advisory Committee Signatures of Advisory

Committee, Program Head and the Graduate School

Changes to the Plan of Study can be made up until the degree is cleared.

All changes require the electronic signature of the student’s Major

Professor, the Head of the Graduate Program, and the Graduate School.

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Signals

Course Signals-predictive model

• Percentage of points earned in course to date• Level of effort (interaction in Blackboard)• Academic history: GPA, GRE/SAT, number of

credit attempts• Residency, age, …

Parameters

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Research Integrity

RCR is tracked and recorded TCITI Training Certification

Self-paced web-based training program. The Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program) administered by the University of Miami is a leading provider of research education content. The web-based training materials serve millions of learners at academic institutions, government agencies, and commercial organizations in the U.S. and around the world.

Paul Braunschweiger Ph.D., University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and Karen Hansen, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, founded the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI Program) in 2000. Representatives from the Albany Medical Center, the Children's Hospital of Boston, Dartmouth College, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Group Health Cooperative, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, the University of Kentucky, the University of Miami, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and the University of Washington comprised the first group of content developers for the CITI Program, with an initial focus on human subjects research (HSR) in biomedicine.

Reseach Integrity

• GRAD 61200 is a 1-credit graduate course inthe Responsible Conduct of Research.

• Course meets in an 8-week format: 2 hour classmeetings, once a week for seven weeks.

• Class attendance is mandatory• Weekly writing assignments in Blackboard;

analysis of case studies.• Final writing assignment during week 8 consists

of three case studies.

T

Topics

• Personal Responsibility of Researchers• Introduction to Ethical Theory• Research Integrity• Protection of Research Subjects• Managing Conflicting Interests• Scientific Record Keeping and Data

Management• Authorship and Peer Review• Intellectual Property• Managing Sponsored Projects• Collaborative Research

T

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Prelim Exam

Preliminary Examination

(Doctoral Students Only)To be eligible, doctoral students must have filed a plan of study, satisfactorily completed most of their formal study, and satisfied any departmental foreign language requirements.

-There must be two full sessions of registration between a satisfactory preliminary examination, and the final Ph.D. examination.

T

PrelimGraduate School Form 8: Request forAppointment of Examining Committee

1. Login to myPurdue2. Select the "Graduate School Plan of Study"3. Select the "Request for Appointment of

Examining Committee"4. Click on the "Form 8: Request for Appointment

of Examining Committee"

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Student Self-Retrieval and History

Workshop Details

Departments data retrieval

Report of Proposal Writing Workshops 2012-14

Reports by Department registered completed

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis &Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

LATEX handles equations

Final ExaminationStudents are required to submit an electronic Request for Appointment of Examining Committee (G.S. Form 8) at least two weeks prior to their scheduled exam.

To submit this form, the student should complete the following steps:

1. Login to myPurdue using Purdue Career Account credentials2. Select the “Graduate School Plan of Study” link under the “Graduate

Students” section on the “Academic” tab3. Select the “Request for Appointment of Examining Committee” link

to open the Exam Form Generator4. Click on the “Request

for Appointment of Examining Committee” link to initiate the form

The Defense

Final Examination

(MS and PhD Students) Final examinations must be held (and the electronic report form received by the Graduate School) before the last week of classes of the academic session in which graduation is expected.

$200 Late Graduation Deadline FeeA Late Fee is assessed for

1.Missing the plan of study deadline for candidacy in thatsession.

2. Missing the deadline to declare candidacy.3. Listing on the Graduate School's candidate roster for the

same degree for more than two consecutive sessions.4. Late deposit (after the deadline) of a thesis or dissertation.5. Updates or corrections to deposited theses or dissertations.

Plagiarism Screening• Effective September 1, 2014, a new certificationwill

be required when all dissertations and theses aredeposited in the Graduate School.

• The degree candidate must certify:• That the work is free of plagiarism, all materials

appearing in thethesis/dissertation have been properly quoted andattributed, and the author's manuscript wasdiagnostically reviewed using ithenticate and anyidentified items have been satisfactorily resolved.

To obtain an ithenicate account

Professors can obtain aniThenticate user account quickly by sendingan email requesting a user account topedunn@purdue.edu.

Any questions regarding use of iThenticatecan be addressed to the same address.

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

1. Schedule your appointment2.Submit electronic thesis deposit3. Attend your deposit appointment (for

in-person deposit;proxies attendappointment for proxy appointments)

4. Pay the deposit fee (online or in-person at Bursar'sOffice)

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Candidate Audit

Just after the deadline to declare candidacy, the Graduate School creates and releases electronic candidate audits to department contacts for all students on the graduation roster. These audits:- List any outstanding issues to be

resolved prior to degree clearance- Must be signed by the Major

Professor, the Head of the Graduate Program, and finally, the Graduate School

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

39

Time to degree and completion

• We track student progress in aggregate• We look at cohorts for completion • We have improved our calculation of time to

degree (TTD).• Present TTD report using Tableau

40

Traditional calculation

• When calculating a TTD, we always need to capture a starting point and an ending point

• At Purdue, this information sits on two tables: profile table and degree table. By joining these two tables, we are able to calculate TTD

• TTD calculation is inflated. Why? Because1. Only one record of each student is saved in the profile table 2. The record is the first semester of enrollment in the graduate

program3. One starting point for students with multiple degrees4. One starting point for students studying different disciplines5. Stop-out semesters cannot be captured

41

Traditional calculation

Example

John Smith graduated in 2000 with an MS in Biology, then returned later in 2008 to pursue a PhD degree. Suppose he graduated in 2014 with a PhD in Chemistry. We would record his TTD as 14years.

We’ve fixed this problem

PhD TTD Comparison by College

6.1 6.05.8 5.7

5.55.2 5.2

5.04.8

4.5

6.2

6.6

5.9

7.4

6.2

5.55.8 5.7 5.7

6.0

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

College ofScience

College ofLiberal Arts

College ofPharmacy

College ofEducation

College ofVeterinaryMedicine

KrannertSchool of

Management

College ofEngineering

College ofAgriculture

College ofHealth and

HumanSciences

College ofTechnology

New Old

The Progression Toward Graduation

• Plan of Study• Course Work• Research• Qualifying Exam• Prelim Exam• PD Workshops• Thesis Defense• Thesis Deposit• Degree Clearance• Graduation

Department

Graduate School

Assessment & Evaluation

Discussion Time