June 18, 2008
College Accountability Dashboard Debuts
The Minnesota state college system unveiled on Tuesday its new Accountability Dashboard. The service is based on a Web site that displays a series of measures—tuition rates, graduates’ employment rates, condition of facilities—that use speedometer-type gauges to show exactly how the Minnesota system and each of its individual colleges is performing.
The dashboard makes already-available information about institutional performance easy to access by the public. Yet it’s not clear that the system will prove to be the best solution, Richard Garrett, a senior research analyst with Eduventures, an industry consulting company, told The Chronicle. American colleges appear to be pursuing a “patchwork of measures and metrics and benchmarks” that allow for some comparisons between institutions, he said. But the higher-education system is so fragmented that tools such as the dashboard can give only partial pictures.
What do you think? Is this a step forward for higher education accountability? Or is it window dressing?
Posted on Wednesday June 18, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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It would be a lot easier to have an opinion if I could actually access the dashboard.
Once I found the link (intriguingly not included in the Chronicle’s story — it is at http://www.mnscu.edu/board/accountability/index.html) and tried to go to the dashboard, Explorer repeatedly closed the page.
If intelligently done, this could be helpful, for universities and students. Until it works, though, I guess it’s in the “window dressing” category.
— drj50 Jun 19, 09:10 AM #
At my institution, we are finding the same problem if you use IE7, but it is working fine with IE6.
— Woodsie Jun 19, 09:57 AM #
This dashboard is a very good first-generation attempt at measuring and documenting accountability. It focuses primarily on nonfinancial items (reminiscent of some aspects of the nonprofit version of the Balanced Scorecard developed by Kaplan); the four categories measured are access and opportunity, quality programs and services, meet state and regional economic needs, and innovation and efficiency. I would like to see more financial indicators — accountability to the public includes developing sustainable, financially strong institutions. Under “access and opportunity” there are two metrics — percent change in enrollment and net tuition and fees as a % of median income. However, lack of proper liquidity and overuse of debt are not reflected anywhere in the model (although facilities condition index is, under “innovation and efficiency”).
— jtz Jun 19, 10:07 AM #
IE6? Finally got in via Firefox, although there may be things I can’t see.
With that caveat, it seemed pretty simpistic and I couldn’t seem to drill down any further. I’d like to see the definitions and standards. For example, what are they measuring when they measure “diversity?” Are we just talking head counts or are we looking at evidence of the extent to which diverse backgrounds and perspective improve learning? Head counts are interesting, but don’t necessarily have any effect on learning. How many minority students room, eat, and socialize with students from the majority population? How many have leadership roles in student organizations serving a cross-section of the student population?
— drj50 Jun 19, 10:23 AM #
#1 — Try turning off the pop-up blocker. It worked for me once I did that in IE7. The dashboard is very interesting. I wonder why UMinn isn’t listed as an institution (perhaps not in the system?).
— Richard Jun 19, 12:00 PM #
The Dashboard displays just enough data to confuse and mislead. It leaves questions about who’s setting the criteria and how the colleges it measures are being funded. It’s not a display worthy of a university system.
— Morgan Jun 24, 12:18 PM #