Data is Key to Career Services Success and the ADA KG Wants to Help You Capitalize Data

By Cami Hernandez Merhar, Texas A&M University

As a marketer by trade, I am constantly thinking about who my audience is.

The Assessment and Data Analytics KG was no exception.

After taking stock by asking board members and getting a better sense of what the Higher Education sector is like (I originally started in Technology), I realized that regardless of where you are in your career within Career Services, data is critical to either improving your success or your success period.

The great news is that the Assessment and Data Analytics KG is here to help you! We’ve gone through the trouble of re-watching our past webinars and categorizing them based on where you think you are in terms of your data and assessment journey.

• Are you just getting comfortable with data?
• Are you already comfortable and want to unleash the power of data?
• Or like all of us, really interested in how Final Destination Survey data can help you?

It’s possible that you’re in between, but regardless, we’ve got the content for you! See our webinar categories below!

If you’re not a part of the ADA KG, then come and join us! Email us at mchmerhar@tamu.edu and we’ll add you to the KG list!

Getting Comfortable with Data:

– Develop a Culture of Evidence: Growing in Competence and Confidence in Assessment & Evaluation
o In this webinar, Dr. Kristin Walker-Donnelly will discuss foundational principles for developing a culture of evidence. She will share research-based strategies for enhancing your competence and confidence in assessment, evaluation, and data governance. Dr. Walker-Donnelly will discuss how to use best practices and evidence-based findings to inform practice and how to articulate how individual work impacts departmental and institutional goals.

– How to design surveys to get valid results and actionable insights
o Higher Education Institutions often employ survey research methods to gain insight about the student experience in an effort to assess and improve current processes. When conducting survey research, a variety of factors contribute to obtaining actionable results. High response rates are often cited as a reflection of a survey’s credibility. However, question content and design are key factors that also influence the accuracy of survey results. This webinar will focus on how to create, format and administer surveys that return quality data. Key concepts will include question wording, questionnaire design, quantitative versus qualitative data, response bias and completion rates.

– Assessment as Storytelling: Understanding Needs, Strategizing Action, and Communicating Value
o What difference do career services professionals make in students’ lives? How do we best contribute to the educational missions of our institutions? How do we know? Advocating for and continuously improving the work that we do as career professionals begins with compelling responses to these questions. But, who has time to answer them well? This webinar frames assessment as a powerful tool to help career professionals “tell the story” of the impact of their programs, services, and resources in the lives of the students that they reach. We explore different types of assessment strategies (e.g., needs, participation, satisfaction, outcomes) that can inform the development and enhancement of career development paraprofessional programs. We then discuss ways to make assessment activities both meaningful and manageable, as we connect them to day-to-day activities of our career services offices. Examples of completed assessment projects, shared from design, to findings, to use of results, provide illustrations and resources that can be translated into your own work setting

– Career services assessment process: Accreditation standards and departmental outcomes
o Career Service departments have become increasingly important to the missions of universities and colleges. This webinar covers the assessment processes of career services as it relates to higher education institutional and professional standards (SACSCOC, CAS). Attendees will be asked to consider the development and calculation of their department outcomes, goals and missions. We will talk about writing, reviewing, and revising outcomes within the larger context of the division and university. We look forward to participants sharing their experiences, struggles and triumphs with their on-going assessment process. To guide our discussion on please complete the pre-workshop survey.

Unleash the Power of Data:

– Telling the Story through Data: Part 2
o Join us for the highly anticipated follow up session with Ashley Graham Phipps and Mallory Allred from Wake Forest University as they recount their data journey on how they developed their databases designed for strategic decision-making and provide us with improvements they’ve seen and made since their initial launch.

– Assessment from the Director’s Chair: A Panel Discussion on Using Data to Advocate for Resources and Tell the Story of Career Services
o As the need for assessment and data in higher education and career services has evolved and increased over the years, its role can look different depending on institutional context. Hear from a panel of directors with varying experiences using data to advocate for resources and tell the story of career services. Each panelist will provide their perspective on the topic. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions of panelists. Whether you are a current or aspiring director, someone who supports a director with data, or you’re simply intrigued, this webinar has something for everyone. No prior assessment knowledge needed!

First Destination Surveys:

– The Data Collection Journey from FDS to Annual Report
o As graduate outcome data becomes increasingly important for informing career services efforts, this webinar comes as an opportunity to share and discuss our triumphs and challenges toward providing clean, accurate, and presentable First Destination Survey results to our universities, employers, faculty, fellow staff, students, and parents. To guide our discussion, we’ll follow the path taken by the Mississippi State University Career Center over the last 4 years to grow their data collection and reporting process. We’ll talk about ways to collect surveys, clean data, create useful and understandable figures, and more! You’ll even have a chance to meet Nik, our personal hero and student data analysis intern. Some of our SoACE schools do an excellent job of gathering and presenting FDS data, and other schools lack the resources to get it done effectively. Wherever you fall on this continuum, we could benefit from hearing about your experiences. Please join us for this data-driven adventure.

– First Destination Survey Collection and Analysis
o Join the Tech and Assessment and Data Analytics KGs as we learn more from Mike McCay, Director of University Career Center at Auburn University, as he discusses collection methods, platforms, and insight around First Destination Surveys and Abdullah Abdul Kader from Texas A&M University on how his team utilizes the data.