Data Feedback Report Tutorial Script Data Collection Cycle

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1 Data Feedback Report Tutorial Script Data Collection Cycle The IPEDS Data Center includes a wide-range of functional options, including access to current and previous versions of your institution's IPEDS Data Feedback Report, also called DFR. To begin, go to the IPEDS website and select the Data Center. Next, select the link Customize DFR ; it is the last link on the left menu. Now, enter the name of a comparison institution. In most cases, you will use your own institution, but you can also select another institution, if desired. For this example, we will enter Chicago State University. As you type, a list of possible matches will appear. If you see the name of your institution, click on the link or click the Search button to complete the search. Once you have selected a comparison institution, you will proceed to the data report selection screen, where you have three options to continue. You may view the comparison institutions Data Feedback Report, create a Statistical Analysis Report, or create a Custom Data Feedback Report. For now, we will view the Data Feedback Report. To download the DFR, click the Data Feedback Report link. A pop-up window appears with several years of PDF reports for the comparison institution. For now, we will select the 2014 report. When your PDF file appears in a new Internet tab, you can examine it on screen, print a copy, or save it to your computer. When you are done, close the tab to access the other reports. DFR Comparison Groups Now that we have selected a comparison institution, we can continue our analysis and explore how to create custom comparison groups. The Customize DFR function of the Data Center is organized by steps indicated by separate tabs on the screen. We have already completed Step One, where we identified our comparison institution. We now move onto Step Two, Data Report. As we complete each step, the next step becomes active and a summary of the selections are identified. We can see that Chicago State University is set as our comparison institution. Note that you can always return to previous steps and make a change. To return to Step One, click on the tab for that step or click 1

2 on the Change button across from My Comparison Institution. Since we wish to keep Chicago State as our comparison institution, we will click on Step Two, Data Report. Steps must be completed sequentially. You cannot move forward to the next step until you have made a selection for the current step. For example, since we have not made a selection for Step Two, Step Three is shaded and not active. We will select Create a Custom Data Feedback Report as our data report type and move forward to Step Three, Identifying Your Comparison Group. This adds our data report type to the summary of our analysis. A comparison group may include between 1 and 100 schools, although a size of 10 to 30 institutions is recommended. If the group contains fewer than five schools, data for some variables may be excluded from the report. Three methods are available for selecting institutions to include in your comparison group. First, you can select institutions by typing institution names one at a time. You may also select institutions by groups. The By Groups option includes three techniques for group selection. The first, EZ Group, allows you to create your own selection criteria based on a limited set of IPEDS variables. The second technique, Automatic Group, includes automatically generated comparison groups created by NCES based on characteristics of the comparison institution such as Carnegie classification, control and level of institution, degree granting status, Title IV status, state, or region code. The third technique, Saved Group, is only available for institutions that have previously submitted a custom comparison group for the creation of their Data Feedback Report. The final method for creating a comparison group is to upload a list of institutions saved from a previous session. For this exercise, we will use Automatic Group to create a comparison group. The automatically generated group may or may not be appropriate for your analysis. Nevertheless, it is a quick way to define a comparison group so you can practice using the Customize DFR and its features. The automatically generated comparison group for Chicago State University contains 32 schools. Before we proceed, let us review the list of institutions in our comparison group and make some adjustments to the list. Scroll down to review the names of institutions in your comparison group. Since our list has 32 institutions, we have two pages. To review the second page, click on the link for page two. To modify the list, click on the Modify button. Then, remove names from the list using the check boxes and links provided. For example, we can remove Governors State University by first returning to page one, checking the box next to Governors State, and clicking the link to Remove Selected. We now have 31 institutions in our comparison group. If we notice an institution that is missing, we can add it to our comparison group list. Click on By Names or Unit IDs. Next, type in the name of the institution to add. For example, Pittsburg State University. When the name and unit ID appears, click the link or the school name and the institution is added. We now have 32 institutions in our comparison group, and Pittsburg State University is listed at the bottom of page two. Since we will use this list, select Continue. College Navigator Tutorial 2

3 Again, click the link to download our Data Feedback Report, this time using our Custom Comparison Group. Now, you can select the PDF icon for the year of data you would like to download, or you can select an institution from the drop down menu and the PDF icons appear for that institution. Click on any one of these links to view, print, or download the report. When we are finished, we will close the window to return to our analysis. Custom Data Feedback Reports Now that we have chosen a comparison institution and selected a custom comparison group, let us review our analysis and continue on to create a Custom Data Feedback Report. At the top of the screen, we see a summary of our analysis to this point. Chicago State University is identified as My Comparison Institution. We have selected a Custom Data Feedback Report as our data report type, and we have selected 32 institutions for our comparison group. We are now ready for Step Four of our analysis, specifying the figures that we want to include in our Custom Data Feedback Report. We can move to Step Four by clicking on the Continue button, or clicking on the tab for Step Four Figures. We want to create a Custom Data Feedback Report and include some of the charts not available in the standard IPEDS DFR. If we click on Expand/Collapse All, we can see all the variables that are included in each chart. Notice that while you can see the individual variables, we can only select whole figures, not variables within figures. To modify those variables, we need to make a Statistical Analysis Report. For now, let us continue with our Custom DFR. Click on Expand/Collapse All again, so we can see the complete list of figures. The small book icon with a checkmark indicates those charts included in the standard IPEDS DFR. Clicking the link to Select Only Variables Printed in IPEDS DFRs automatically checks all those charts for inclusion in our Customized DFR. We'll add three more by manually checking boxes. Use the Info buttons to see a description of any chart and expand the chart to view its component variables. We'll add the figures for Enrollment by Student Level Fall 2013, Fulltime Enrollment by Student Level Fall 2013, and Part-time Enrollment by Student Level Fall Scroll down the list to see what other charts are available. Later, you will get a chance to make your own selections, but for now, we will move to our last step, Output, by clicking the Continue button. Our summary indicates that we have 18 figures selected: the 15 included in the printed Data Feedback Report and the 3 that we added. College Navigator Tutorial 3

4 Preview any section of the Customized DFR using the tabs. Preview the individual charts of requested figures using the tabs below. Figures 3, 4 and 5 are the additional figures we specified and are not part of the standard IPEDS Data Feedback Report. As we return to the top of the window, notice that we can enter a description of the comparison group before we download our Custom DFR. The description that we enter will be included in our report and is helpful when you review your report later. We will enter IPEDS Automatic Group minus Governors State University plus Pittsburg State University, as that matches the selections we made when creating this comparison group. We can now download the Customized Data Feedback Report by clicking the Download button. Click Open to view the Customized DFR. Here it is, complete with methodological notes, comparison group list, footnotes, and sources for all charts. It differs from a standard IPEDS DFR only by the title on the cover and the additional Figures 3, 4 and 5. When you are finished, close the window to return to your analysis. Statistical Analysis Reports Now that you have created a Custom Data Feedback Report, we will continue on and use the Statistical Analysis Report capability to review the underlying data for each school and modify the variables within the figures. To switch from a Custom Data Feedback Report to a Statistical Analysis Report, we need to return to Step Two, Data Report. To do so, click on the tab for Data Report or click on the Change button across from Data Report Type, which is currently set to Create a Custom Data Feedback Report. This time, choose Create a Statistical Analysis Report. We can see that the summary of our analysis has changed. Chicago State University is identified as My Comparison Institution, and we still have 32 institutions in our comparison group. But now, we have selected a Statistical Analysis Report as our data report type. Also notice that after making our selection, we have been brought to Step Four, and the name of this step has changed. Instead of being labeled Figures, as it was in our Custom DFR, it is now labeled Variables. If we click on the Expand/Collapse All link, we can again see all the variables that are included in each chart. But instead of selecting whole figures, we select the individual variables within each figure. For this analysis, we will again Select all the variables that are printed on the IPEDS DFR, but uncheck Women from our first figure. So, Figure 1 will include the percentage distribution of enrollment by race and ethnicity only. Also, we will include two additional sets of finance variables. As we can see when we scroll down, the standard printed IPEDS DFR contains the percent distribution of core revenues by source, but reports the core expenses by function per FTE enrollment. It is often nice to have the two different breakdowns: percent distribution and per FTE enrollment for both revenues College Navigator Tutorial 4

5 and expenses. As a result, we click on Check All under core revenues per FTE enrollment by source and percent distribution of core expenses by function. We now proceed to Step Five, Output, by clicking on Continue. This is our Statistical Analysis Report. We are on the Statistics tab, which displays the values for the comparison institution, Chicago State University, and the median values for the comparison group for each component variable within each figure. Notice that while the title of the first variable still includes the percentage of students who are women, we excluded that variable in an earlier step, so it is no longer listed in the report. Now, we'll view the graph for our second figure, Enrollment, by clicking the icon. The graph looks like the one in our DFR, but without footnotes. Use the Back button to return to the report. To download an Excel file with the statistics, click on the link above the Statistical Analysis Report. Select Open to view the file. Your computer may prompt you to verify that the file is an appropriate format for Excel and is a trusted source. The file just contains formatting commands that produce this message. So click Yes to access the nicely formatted Statistical Analysis Report complete with the NCES header. While the Excel file includes the basic statistics for each component variable for the comparison institution and the comparison group, it does not contain the list of institutions in the comparison group or the underlying data for each institution within the comparison group. Next, close Excel and return to our analysis. Now, select the Data tab of the report to see the values for all variables for each school in the comparison group. Notice in the summary of our analysis that we have data for 32 institutions on 100 variables: definitely, a lot of data to view. The data are displayed in tab format. Use the scroll bar to see all the variables, and use the page links to see the data for all 32 institutions. Click on the column names to sort the data on any one variable in ascending or descending order. We will sort by FTE enrollment. Since the data can be awkward to view on screen, we will download the data by clicking on the link. Open the file with Excel, and select Yes to open the file now. Here we have a formatted report. But more importantly, we have access to the raw data so we can recreate any of the graphs or tables using our own style and format. Let us close Excel and return to our analysis. College Navigator Tutorial 5