Panel Discussion on Building a Graduate School Data Collection Infrastructure Comments from the Georgia Tech Data Acquisition Experience NSF AGEP and AAAS Second Evaluation Capacity Building Meeting, January 26-28, 2006 San Juan, Puerto Rico Robert M. Hume Data Analysis Partner OMED Educational Services Georgia Institute of Technology

Systemic Definition Issues: I. Georgia Tech admits a student at the graduate level only once Admittance type and class designation are delayed 1st MS matriculation is not changed for 2nd Master’s or PhD AGEP Data Table Submission: New Fall Graduate Enrollees (PhD & MS Degree new for 2006): First time MS or PhD students are accounted for Continuing Master’s students are missed II. Data group inconsistency: All Applicants: Under Represented Minority (URM) vs All Admits/Enrollees: All ethnicities, gender, citizenships AGEP Data Table Submission: Distinction between “applicants” and “yield” Program perspective: students apply/accepted by (multiple records) multiple programs but enroll once Institutional perspective: only count a student once (one record/ student)

III. Georgia University System recognizes a Multi Racial ethnic group “M” and US citizen:redistributed as URM “M” and International:redistributed as Foreign AGEP Data Table Submission: The same racial assignment is carried forward from the application pool to the enrollment pool IV. No formal candidacy milestone records are maintained by the Georgia Tech Registrar AGEP Data Table Submission: Graduate Student Advance to Candidacy levels of achievement are not completed V. PhD degrees awarded and some recipient’s demographics are systematically tracked but not data requested for the PhD Recipient Status (Tenure Track, Gov’t, Industry positions, etc) Systemic Definition Issues:

Georgia Tech Comments on AGEP Data Table Submission Ground Rules I. Timing of Data Submission: Preferred date is after the IPEDS data upload (post Spring Semester) - Yearend (Dec./Jan) deadline conflicts with Federal/ State reporting requirements - Academic Year degrees awarded are compiled after Spring Semester II. Too Many Worksheets: Data acquisition and translation into submission format is very complex: 1) Aggregate data on an application system (SQL script) 2) Create pivot tables (query tool) 3) Transfer pivotal data to AGEP Data Table format (recoding) - Subtle year to year changes cause significant effort during translation process Recommendation: Consolidate data into one aggregate file format where the Institution assigns flags for partitioning into the disciplinary areas. Upload this data file electronically. Note: IPEDS year to year data is submitted to NCES in a prescribed electronic file format.