Welcome

Who We Are

The Office of Assessment and Decision Support (OADS) provides leadership and coordination in data collection and analysis, institutional research and assessment in support of University planning, the continuous improvement of educational programs, and the achievement of University mission, goals, and objectives.

OADS has a significant consultative role on campus. It helps administrators, faculty and staff make effective use of data in management and decision-making by working closely with other departments and offices to provide data and answers to questions from campus constituents. It collaborates to help develop new products such as dashboards and reports and contributes to the design of data marts, data warehouses, and other repositories.

OADS administers surveys of students, staff, and alumni in support of institutional effectiveness and assessment. It compiles data for compliance with Middle States, the Federal Government, and the District of Columbia, and responds to requests for institutional data from external entities such as guidebook publishers, specialized accreditors, and peer institutions.

What’s New

Assessment

OADS is presently administering a survey to Georgetown seniors to assess their satisfaction with their education and experiences as a Georgetown student. It summarizes self-perceptions of their development, satisfaction, and future plans. Results will be available in July. Results of the 2010 survey can be found here.

Institutional Research

In February, data on student aid and human resources were submitted to the U.S. Department of Education as part of the Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS). These surveys provide public information on the source and distribution of student aid as well as headcounts of faculty and staff by assigned position, sex, and race/ethnicity as well as limited information on faculty salaries. The National Center for Education Statistics plans to release the data for Georgetown and all other Title-IV-aid-granting institutions in May. Past years’ data may be found on the IPEDS site or by going here.

Decision Support

The Data Warehousing Working Group is leading a collaborative effort to investigate options for building an integrated warehouse for data from various university systems to provide better decision support. A recently written white paper begins to outline the University’s options.

In consultations with UIS, Financial Affairs, and data stewards from Main Campus, Medical and the Law Centers, OADS is assisting with the development of a human resources data mart. Presently, the team is developing an employee data mart. Future work will add resources that focus on finance and budgetary information.