UMS Early College Data Issue Documentation

This article provides historical information regarding the 2022 Data Governance project focused on standardizing the methods used for coding and tracking Early College participation across  the following four dimensions: (1) Enrollment, (2) Classes/Sections, (3) Location, and (4) Instructor(s).

Detailed Information

Issue Summary

Previous methods of coding and tracking participation in Early College system-wide were inconsistent in some cases and incomplete in others. Sustained growth and more accurate reporting of these programs (Aspirations, Concurrent/Dual Enrollment, and Bridge Year) requires consistent and complete use of fields related to the various dimensions of Early College: Enrollment (student-side), Classes/Sections, Location, and Instructor/s.

To address these issues, this proposal was divided into four distinct, interdependent phases, summarized below beginning with Phase I: Class Section Coding.

Previous Reporting

The report below shows values based on the total enrollments for each program on each campus prior to the implementation of this resolution. 

Showing the text of the Early College Coding Report

Historical Reporting Considerations: Census Vs. End of Term Data

It is important to note the historical differences in reporting between census date and end of term due to late data entry. The queries below illustrated this discrepancy caused by late data entry. For example:

UMS_DTS_EARLY_COLLEGE_CEN_1710_1720 returns 3610 records census date,

UMS_DTS_EARLY_COLLEGE_EXT_1710_1720 returns 3844 records at end of term.

Enrollment

Early College students do not enroll through the standard enrollment process; therefore, some information (e.g., last school attended) was not included in the data.

Resources & Research

Related Links

Strategic Goals Addressed

Educational Attainment

Audit Query

Phase I, II, & III are audited biannually to determine:

  1. Mismatch between early college type and delivery mode - Bridge Year (BY) and Concurrent Enrollment (CE) are never offered online (at least, with very RARE exceptions). The field Audit Issue - Delivery Mode flags any BY and CE sections that have delivery modes of Web. Please check with the institution's registrar to determine whether or not this is a coding error.
  2. The field Audit Issue - Program is used to flag students who have an old academic program (NDUG, NDUN), indicating that they need to be migrated to either NDEC or (for UMS) NECN. This migration needs to occur before census.
  3. Ensure there is not a mismatch between the EC type and the facility.  BY and CE sections are very rarely located on a college campus, so should be reviewed with the institution's registrar for verification.

Closeout Reporting

Phase I: Class Section Coding

Phase I was implementing the use of new class section codes (0300-0399 for Bridge Year, and 0700-0799 for Concurrent/Dual Enrollment).  Aspirations (or Academ-e) classes do not have a distinct scheme for numbering class sections.

Workgroup Name Early College Coding
Workgroup Members Justin Young, Amy Hubbard, Alex Myhre, Jamie Austin, Carol Kim (previously)
Issue Name and/or Description

Class Sections - Academic Plan is not always updated when an early college student changes between early college programs and plans do not reflect the fact that many of these students participate in multiple types of early college at the same time. In addition, each institution had its own academic plan codes.

 
Who are the stakeholders involved? Registrars; Early College coordinators; Institutional Research
Please describe the issue resolution: Class section codes (0300-0399 for Bridge Year and 0700-0799 for Concurrent/Dual Enrollment)
Please provide additional detailed resolution information:

Registrars agreed to code the Class Sections using ranges of 0300 - 0399 for Bridge Year and 0700 - 0799 for Concurrent/Dual Enrollment sections. This allows institutions to get more accurate counts of students participating in these programs and directly ties them to the classes they are enrolled in via a given early college program (for example, a student with an early college academic program code who is enrolled in two classes, one with a section number of 0701 and another with a section of 0605, for example, is enrolled in both a Concurrent/Dual Enrollment section i.e. 0701 and an Aspirations/Academ-e section, as the latter includes any section outside the 0300 and 0700 ranges).
Will this issue need to be reviewed/updated regularly? If so, on what schedule?

Justin Young will assess the continued use of these codes during enrollment watch leading up to Census each fall and spring term.

Phase II: Academic Program Coding

The type of Early College program was not always specified in the Academic Plan or Sub-Plan. In these cases, course-level information was used in order to categorize students into the various types of Early College Programs. The solution was to have all institutions code this at the Academic Sub-Plan level, and all use the same codes for the same programs. See the issue resolution row in the chart below for codes.

Workgroup Name Early College Coding
Workgroup Members Justin Young, Amy Hubbard, Alex Myhre, Jamie Austin, Carol Kim (previously)
Issue Name and/or Description There was not a unique, systemwide identifier for all early college students across the UMS. Career could not be changed, and Academic Plans have specific uses for Early College, so it was agreed upon that the best way to capture early college students using one field would be the Academic Program. Previously, these students were simply included in the non-degree undergraduate program (NDUG and, at USM, NDUN), which meant having to use 11 different plan codes to identify early college students.
Who are the stakeholders involved? Registrars implemented new academic programs as of Fall 2019: NDEC and (for USM) NECN
Please describe the issue resolution: Six of the seven UMS institutions now use NDEC to code their early college students in the Academic Program field, while one institution (USM) uses NECN.
Please provide additional detailed resolution information:  
Will this issue need to be reviewed/updated regularly? If so, on what schedule? Justin Young will review as new students enroll before each census to ensure these students are coded using the new program codes and not the old ones. UMPI still needs to move some of their early college students to this new code.

Phase III: Facility

The purpose for this proposal was to establish a consistent, reliable method for recording and identifying the location of Early College classes which are taught at high schools. This improved standard reporting, aligned these facilities across all UMS institutions and made it easier for UMS data to be moved into the ExplorEC system that high school students use to apply for Early College coursework.

Historically, both location and facility fields had been used across UMS institutions and functional areas to identify Early College class locations, necessitating the usage of multiple data fields and requiring knowledge of which institutions/functional areas code the information in which area. In addition, there were inconsistencies in the amount of information coded (e.g., name of town vs. name of high school), as well as the specific codes (e.g., Winthrop High School vs. Winthrop HS).

In order to accurately report out on Early College offerings, the workgroup implemented ways to ensure that all classes have accurate information recorded, that the information is coded in the same MaineStreet data field (FACILITY_ID) across institutions/functional areas, and that the codes used are uniform.

Issue Resolution

  1. All UMS institutions included the Facility field (FACILITY_ID and its Description) with the name of high school that is hosting the Bridge Year/Concurrent Enrollment course for those classes that start in Fall 2020.
  2. The implementation team worked with UMS IT to ensure all instances of each high school are standardized.
  3. The workgroup will reached out to all UMS institutions to ensure they have the resources to implement step 1, as well as identified barriers existing to implementation

Stewardship

The workgroup recommended an audit each semester to ensure that the data are accurate and reliable. This will requires the time of the DG Team, and of Early College coordinators to reach out to data entry personnel if inconsistencies need correcting.

Resources

 

Phase IV: Instructor

One aspect of Early College (EC) identified for improvement by the Early College Coding workgroup was that of accurate tracking of instructors of EC classes. Previously, methods for recording the instructor of EC classes varied by campus and by EC program, and included using the name of the instructor (approximately half of EC sections in Fall 2019), using the name of the high school coordinator (non-UMS), and using the name of the campus’s EC coordinator.

These methods posed significant problems, including for general reporting, but also a need to accurately identify class instructor for potential concurrent enrollment accreditation. Because early college high school instructors are not to be evaluated, being able to identify these faculty in our data also helps to ensure that only UMS faculty are evaluated with respect to their classes.

The Early College Coding workgroup has worked to identify a solution that meets both of the needs above, as well as being recorded in MaineStreet rather than the EC-specific software, Canusia. This third requirement was needed to ensure maximum accuracy of the information as well as provide the ability for broad querying across UMS employees with appropriate security permissions.

Issue Resolution

All Early College course sections have the actual instructor of the course listed as the first/primary instructor on the course section (please note that many sections will have an additional, UMS employee, listed as an additional instructor for administrative purposes; the actual instructor should ALWAYS be listed as primary). In order to achieve this, all Early College classes whose primary instructor did not have a UMS job title were identified through HRIS, and POI (Person of Interest) IDs were created for those instructors. To identify Early College instructors, the POI type of "Early College H S Teacher" is queried in HR. All Early College instructors can now be added in MaineStreet to the courses they teach. To a certain extent, this data now audits itself, given that an instructor is not in MaineStreet will also not appear in ExplorEC—the software used by Early College. Instructors missing in ExplorEC are readily identified and rectified because missing instructors cause issues for students and campuses. When instructors are missing, the campus contacts the Executive Director of Early College who sends the missing name to HR for a POI (Person of Interest) file to be created. This generates an EMPLID for the instructor, and it appears in ExplorEC in 24 hours, after the daily refresh from MaineStreet. 

Audit Query

The audit query is the same for Phases I & II, DG_AUDIT_EARLY_COLLEGE_ACADPRO, which has been edited to include the UM_EMPLID1 field from the UM_CLSS_SCH_FCL - Class Schedule and Facility table to pull Instructor EMPLID. Although this query can be used if needed, the actual flagging of missing instructors is done by the campus, and rectified by the Executive Director of Early College. See Issue Resolution at left. As part of the biannual audit of Phases I & II, we will ensure that all classes have an accompanying UMS EMPLID.

Audience

  • System-Wide
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