Resources, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness: Core Component 5.D

5.D - Core Component 5.D

The institution works systematically to improve its performance.

The institution develops and documents evidence of performance in its operations.
The institution learns from its operational experience and applies that learning to improve its institutional effectiveness, capabilities, and sustainability, overall and in its component parts.

Argument

5.D.1 In the planning processes in place over the past decade, ASU’s academic quality and productivity have been configured as outputs and societal outcomes defined by the Charter, Vision, and Goals statements. The metrics structure for Board review discussed above assures that performance results are publicly documented and that a feedback loop is established to both the ABOR and also the members of the ASU leadership team. ASU also provides a publicly available web-based annual report summarizing its overall achievements that is also downloadable as a PDF document.

ASU seeks to be driven by data, assessment, and experiential evaluation in its planning and resource allocation activities. For example, the University Office of Institutional Analysis (UOIA) provides timely and accurate data to meet the needs of all internal and external requestors. Examples of commonly used products produced by that office include the ASU Facts page that includes university enrollment summaries (e.g., enrollment by campus), Graduation and Retention (e.g., retention by campus, Degrees Awarded, and Faculty and Staff profiles. The Academic Program Profile provides colleges and academic units access to program specific information. UOIA also maintains ASU’s common data set.

ASU places a high priority on maintaining a Sustainable Campus. Progress towards this goal is documented in its Sustainability Operations Annual Review. The Social Embeddedness Annual Report documents how ASU engages and improves the community to fulfill a key component of its Vision and Goals.

5.D.2 By continually assessing and improving operations in all areas through data-informed decision-making, ASU has been able to advance on many fronts over the past decade.

The eAdvisor system is an approach to student success that is guided by a set of sound educational principles and supported by a technology-based platform for its deployment. eAdvisor(TM) provides the structure that links all the elements for student success— academic major selection, registration for the correct courses, advising, deficiency interventions, and the availability of required courses. With eAdvisor(TM), undergraduate first-year retention rates, increasing from 77 percent for the Fall 2006 cohort to 85.7% percent for the Fall 2015 cohort. A recent addition to eAdvisor(TM) is ME3@ASU, an app that easily allows K-12 and college students to explore careers that fit their interests and passions. Students can use the app to chart an academic pathway to find a major, a program, and a career.

ASU Service Excellence is a developing set of tools and objectives designed to improve student success and improve alumni affinity. The initiative provides training and coaching services to help to improve service strategies and is implementing service focused technology, including adopting the Salesforce CRM system for for student service, centralized online service through myASU, and to identify and implement strategies and tactics to drive consistent, student-centric communications across ASU.

A number of other areas are constantly advancing technology. For example, EdPlus continually evolves and advances learning technologies for online education. ASU Solar Initiatives are constantly expanding and using the latest technology in partnership with local energy industries. The University Technology Office has a range of initiatives aimed to improve such service as research computing, wireless connectivity, information security, and cloud-based services (e.g., Office365).

Resources, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness: Core Component 5.D

2017 Assurance Argument

5.D - Core Component 5.D

Argument

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