SACS Online Compliance Reporting at Georgia Tech: Surviving and Thriving

SAIR 2005Joseph Hoey

Denise GardnerShawn Carnley

Presentation Outline

Timeline Planning process Design and documentation issues IE documentation Faculty qualifications documentation Website design, construction, and

funtionality

I. GT SACS Compliance Reporting: Timeline Adopted Began planning process in October 2002

Associate Provost: SACS Liaison, QEP Leadership Director of Assessment: Compliance Report

Leadership Compliance Group began meeting in January

2003 Website development began in August 2003,

accelerated with hiring of Web Programmer Compliance report turned into SACS, September

2004

GT SACS Compliance Reporting: Planning Processes Planning: Iterative process through which the

reporting and documentation system was constructed

Planning: Timeline adopted Planning: Definitions of adequacy as core

drivers of everything that followed Planning: Use of auditing questions as drivers of

documentation

GT SACS Compliance Reporting: Design & Documentation Issues Design issues in documenting IE (interactive table, link to

assessment plans and previous updates) Design features of OATS, the institution’s system for

documenting assurance of student learning and continuous improvement.

“Examples of good practice in closing the loop” included in Core Requirement 2.5

Documenting consortial agreements (interactive table, link to agreements, discussion of compliance with SACS policy on consortial agreements)

College Level: Ivan Allen College

OATS: How it Looks When Completed

II. Documenting Faculty Qualifications: System Development

Timeline creation Audit of then-current documentation Iterative discussion process with Associate

Deans Decisions re: depth of documentation Meetings with Faculty Support Services Data request to Institutional Research

Creation of Spreadsheets from Faculty and Course Data Faculty and course data for three

academic terms required Matching course CIP codes with faculty

degree CIP codes Creation of crosswalk for

similar/equivalent CIP codes Extensive programming required 

Creation of Taxonomy of Explanations Needed explanations for those without CIP

code match Tenure/Tenure-Track faculty

degree in closely related or inter-disciplinary area teaching in a new and emerging area extensive professional and/or research experience

Part-time and Adjunct Other, including Graduate Assistants

Spreadsheet Completion and Verification Done by school chairs or associate deans Provide explanation if CIP code mismatch

or provide correct degree CIP code Verification of credentials on file Verification of current vita on file

The Final Product

Searchable web-based roster Showing all courses and faculty for the

given academic year Including appropriate documentation of

credentials

III. Website Development

Began May 2004 6 month development process Tools: Dreamweaver, Photoshop, PHP,

MySQL

Development …

Began designing the new Assessment website using Dreamweaver Templates.

Based off of what was then the current Georgia Tech theme

Strategy

“Eat, breathe, sleep the SACS accreditation process until I fully understand it.”

Follow the “Principles of Accreditation” as closely as possible.

Strategy…

Design database around the “Principles of Accreditation” outline.

Develop the Compliance Report web site as a custom content management system.

Storing the report and related information in a database reaped huge rewards in the end result.

Demo

See also: http://www.assessment.gatech.edu/SACS/demo/sacs_review/

Contact

Joseph Hoey

joseph.hoey@oars.gatech.edu, 404.894.0510 Denise Gardner

gardnerd@uga.edu, 706.425.3204 Shawn Carnley

shawn.carnley@gatech.edu, 404.385.6562