As new technologies evolve, the needs of the modern workforce continue to change. And with the high cost of education, students need to know their investments will help them succeed.
That’s where the program review process comes in. The purpose of academic program review is to continuously improve your institution’s curriculum to drive student success both inside and outside the classroom.
Higher education today has changed fundamentally from its roots — understanding its evolution can help uncover the reasons behind the challenges institutions face today.
The purpose of higher education, for example, has evolved throughout the centuries. In the United States, it began as a way to train religious ministers. Today, though, there are many reasons people attend higher education:
Another dramatic change we’ve seen recently was in teaching modalities. At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions had to pivot to a completely virtual instruction model, which has since resulted in rising demand for online learning options.
As its history suggests, academia continues to evolve due to a combination of external and internal pressures. Here are some ways we’re likely to see higher education change over the coming years:
That’s the ultimate goal of academic program review — to create programs that meet students’ current educational needs and prepare them to succeed in a changing world.
Academic program review is an important process for ensuring your institution is giving students the skills and knowledge they need to successfully navigate the world post-graduation.
Here are some of the best ways you can ensure your academic program reviews help with curriculum management and institutional health.
Involving your program stakeholders in the academic program review process is essential for maintaining their trust and providing context for your findings.
Similar to the concept in business, program stakeholders include anyone who has a definitive stake in a specific academic program. Some of the stakeholders you may consider reaching out to include:
Connect with these individuals early on in the process and use a mixture of data collection methodologies to ensure you get as many responses as possible.
Some effective methods for collecting stakeholder input include:
Whatever techniques you use, proper communication with stakeholders is vital for getting the results you want. Make sure they know when their responses are due, and send reminders periodically to encourage participation from anyone who may have forgotten.
Academic programs don’t exist in a vacuum. Each one plays a key role in helping your institution achieve its overall mission and strategic goals.
When you understand how each program contributes to your institution’s mission — both
individually and in conjunction with other programs — you can make better decisions about what steps you should take to improve your offerings.
Here are some ways you can expand your academic program reviews to better contextualize your findings:
Further, it can help to evaluate how your program compares with similar offerings at peer institutions. Conducting an external benchmarking analysis will provide valuable insight into how your competitors position and manage programs like the one under evaluation.
As we’ve mentioned, continuous improvement is the ultimate goal of academic program review processes.
Regularly updating program curricula and course offerings to reflect the changing needs of our society helps ensure the program is always:
Developing a culture of continuous improvement among your institutional stakeholders is critical for closing the loop on academic review — without buy-in from your faculty and staff, it’s difficult to successfully implement your action plans, even incrementally.
Some helpful tips for encouraging continuous improvement at your institution include:
Ultimately, when your entire institution is united in its pursuit of continuous improvement, your stakeholders are more likely to hold each other accountable for sustained program growth and development.
If your review reveals that you should make changes to the program in question, you need to be smart about how you go about implementing those changes. It’s critical to strike a balance between honoring students’ academic pursuits and meeting your institution’s financial and reputational needs.
The key to making informed decisions? Your data.
At the start of a program review, take time to define the program’s goals and establish which metrics you can track to understand how well it meets those goals. Some examples of quantitative metrics you can use include:
Qualitative data, such as student feedback in end-of-course surveys, are just as important when evaluating your programs. Combining both hard empirical data with qualitative feedback will help you gain a comprehensive understanding of the program and its effectiveness.
An integrated data collection and analytics platform can help your institution generate valuable insights into your program. Ideally, it should include intuitive visualization capabilities that help you put the data in context so all stakeholders can understand its relevance.
Similarly, if you’re considering launching a new program, your program review data will be instrumental in your decision.
Building a process for new programs can help you identify which program ideas have the strongest potential for returns. Some of the supporting documentation required in a new program proposal should include:
You also need to apply similar scrutiny to the decision to sunset existing programs:
Understanding whether a program is worth investing in, whether it already exists in your catalog or you’re adding it, requires sufficient data.
Education technology (edtech) has come a long way in helping institutions harness the full power of their data. Thanks to advancements like the cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), analytics is more comprehensive and straightforward than ever.
A comprehensive suite of fully integrated digital solutions can help you get the most out of your institution’s data by centralizing all your information into one convenient location.
For example, your edtech software suite might include the following program review solutions:
Ultimately, the better your users can navigate the software, the better your results are likely to be. That’s why the software vendor you choose to work with should provide ongoing support and education services to ensure you can get the most out of your investment.
If your institution is looking for a unified software solution that will streamline your academic program review process, Watermark is here to help. Our fully integrated Educational Impact Suite (EIS) centralizes all your academic and student data, including student surveys, curriculum maps, faculty activity, and more for easy access and analysis.
Watermark Course Evaluations & Surveys solution enables you to pull answers from end-of-course surveys and generate rich, user-friendly visualizations to inform curriculum decisions. Build accessible curriculum maps with Watermark Curriculum Strategy to streamline curriculum development and catalog creation.
Streamline the academic program review process with advanced higher education data management solutions from Watermark. Get started today with a personalized demo.
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