Introducing the National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership & Training (3 minutes)
Learn how the National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP) can help institutional stakeholders access important student success metrics with minimal support. It also provides information about the training tutorials available for the PDP dashboards.
Resources
Transcript Thomas was recently hired by our institution to serve as provost. As a data savvy professional, one of Thomas’ first requests was to review the institution’s key performance indicators. Sandra, the Director of Institutional Research,… sent him the institution’s completion rates which have been stagnant for several years. While completion rates are important, Thomas knows that it’s a lagging indicator which measures past performance. And he wants his institution to focus on leading indicators since they predict the future. To improve the outcomes of first-year students, the institution should improve early momentum metrics like credit completion. He asks Sandra for reports on metrics like gateway course completion rates and credit completion ratios. Unfortunately, Sandra tells Thomas that he is asking for data that are not readily available, and her current workload demands are such that it will take a few weeks to extract the data, analyze the results, and write a report. Fortunately, Thomas is familiar with the National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership from his previous role and knows that it can provide information on early momentum metrics, as well as outcomes metrics that his new institution needs. He knows that if senior leadership had access to better and quicker data, then they would be more agile in their decision making. And he also knows that if unit leaders had access to early momentum metrics then they could use these data to conduct better outreach to students who are struggling. And he knows that the PDP is available on his computer so he would not add to the IR office workload to meet his data requests. Thomas signs a data sharing agreement with the National Student Clearinghouse to adopt the PDP and asks Sandra to serve as the administrator and work with the Clearinghouse to upload institutional data. Once the system is ready, Thomas calls a meeting of the student success council to discuss the PDP and its potential impact on students, faculty, and staff. And he asks them to review the training materials so they can serve as a resource for others at the institution. The National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership training materials include the types of metrics used and provide insight on how to use these dashboards to better understand student outcomes. With help from these training materials, we hope that your institution’s faculty, staff, and administrators use these dashboards to better understand, and support, your students. To learn more about the Postsecondary Data Partnership, please visit the National Student Clearinghouse website.
