Higher education data quality evaluations, synonymous with data audits, are becoming increasingly important to institutions aspiring to provide evidence of student learning and success to a variety of stakeholders. This evolution is spurred by increased accountability and realizations that decision-making requires insights gleaned through data, preferably collected over time, and triangulated across multiple methods. The audience for this publication includes program coordinators, department heads, data analysts, and institutional leadership across different institutional types and sizes. Individuals with varying levels of data expertise can also benefit from this guide as the information is designed for cross-functional teams and extends beyond an individual role.
A major goal of this guide is to provide resources and direction for how to facilitate data quality evaluations at the readers' respective campuses or organizations. Another, equally important, aim is for institutions to build capacity for data collection,
communication of results, and associated best practices, including establishing key partnerships that will support current and future data-focused projects. Data sources and technology platforms may have increased substantially over time. However, the method by which campuses connect information, particularly student-level data, in consistent fashion is far less developed. This publication addresses some of the prevailing challenges in continuing to move the needle on data audit best practices. It also provides recommended activities to advance readers' understanding and application of successful data quality evaluation strategies.
A publication of University 101 Programs, University of South Carolina. The University 101 Faculty Resource Manual, 2026 is the 17th edition of the publication and builds off previous versions. This edition has been updated to reflect best practices for teaching a first-year seminar. The first nine chapters constitute the “textbook” for U101 instructors and were written by University 101 Programs Staff.
Each of the 10 learning outcome chapters were developed by committees with diverse representation from across campus based on their expertise, review of literature and best practices, and approaches that have worked well in past
years. The manual is updated each year based on assessment data indicating which approaches work best for achieving course outcomes.
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Higher education professionals engage peer leaders in a variety of settings, from academic advising to residence life and from orientation to the senior year experience. Although the structure and administration of peer leader programs varies depending on the unique needs and features of a particular college or university, there is a commonality across peer leaders and their experiences. In short, peer leadership has a triple-impact in that it benefits student recipients, the institution, and the peer leaders themselves.
Toward Peer Leadership as a High Impact Practice: Insights from the U.S. Data in the 2023 International Survey of Peer Leaders contributes to the academic scholarship on peer leadership through the recent collection of over 1,500 student responses on their experiences as peer leaders. This report looks at peer leadership as a high-impact practice, examines the equity and access to participation in peer leadership, and explores key questions for practitioners looking to implement, refine, or assess their peer leadership programs, as well as for researchers with an interest in drawing findings of this survey for their work.
Transfer students are an important yet often understudied and underserved population within postsecondary education. Millions of students rely on the transfer function of community colleges and two-year schools to earn bachelor’s degrees. Yet, low student transfer and bachelor’s degree completion rates indicate a leaky transfer pipeline. Given the growing interest and increase in transfer and transfer-intending students across the postsecondary landscape and the longstanding degree completion challenges these students often face, institutional leaders and staff must understand how they can best support transfer students and bolster their persistence. For this reason, the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition created the inaugural National Study of Transfer Student Initiatives.
This report details the results from the 2021 National Study of Transfer Student Initiatives and is intended to provide leaders, researchers, and policymakers with a national overview of transfer-related policies, practices, and procedures as well as institutional and bureaucratic barriers to their development, coordination, and implementation. In addition, it prompts discussions for leaders and staff as they consider how transfer-related efforts may be improved to better meet the needs of students.
Rethinking Student Transitions: How Community, Participation, and Becoming Can Help Higher Education Deliver on its Promise, presents a reimagined theory of student transitions in college. The authors contend that while previous theorizations have helped move the practice of supporting student success forward through the latter half of the twentieth century, earlier conceptualizations and models have led to an inconsistent and incomplete picture of students’ experiences in transition. The book offers both a review and critique of current models of transition and then develops a new conceptual viewpoint based in the ideas of situated learning and transitions as becoming. The second half of the book is dedicated to using this new theoretical perspective to illustrate how higher education professionals can create conditions to support students in transition more intentionally, with a particular view toward supporting historically marginalized students, including racially and ethnically minoritized students, first-generation students, and post-traditional students.
A publication of University 101 Programs, University of South Carolina, Transitions is the customized textbook for students in the University of South Carolina's University 101 first-year seminar. It includes both general and institution-specific information for first-year students.
Topics include time management, academic success strategies, career development, information literacy, health and wellness, and values and identity. An ideal model for institutions working to design a custom-published, first-year seminar text.
Transfer students face a unique set of challenges when trying to get acclimated to their new environment. In the current transfer literature, there is an absence of career development in all its forms including career resources, career advising, career coaching/counseling, professional readiness, and job search strategizing. Ensuring Success for Students Who Transfer: The Importance of Career and Professional Development works to fill this void.
This publication presents anecdotal and data-driven evidence of career development and professional readiness being infused at various universities to offset the imperceptible career voice in current transfer literature.
The First-Year Seminar: Designing, Implementing, and Assessing Courses to Support Student Learning and Success, a five-volume series, is designed to assist educators who are interested in launching a first-year seminar or revamping an existing program. Each volume examines a different aspect of first-year seminar design or administration and offers suggestions for practice grounded in research on the seminar, the literature on teaching and learning, and campus-based examples. Because national survey research suggests that the seminar exists in a variety of forms on college campuses -- and that some campuses combine one or more of these forms to create a hybrid seminar -- the series offers a framework for decision making rather than a blueprint for course design.
