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Summer 2004
Strategic Comparison
GW Sets Baseline To Evaluate Strategic Initiative
By Thomas
Kohout
This summer, a team of representatives from all reaches of the University
will work to gather information on the 99 performance measures cited in
the Strategic Plan for Academic Excellence.
The plan, which was approved by the Board of Trustees last year, established
six goals for the University: move solidly into the ranks of first-tier
institutions through quality undergraduate education and selected, top-ranked
graduate programs; enhance graduate education; move into the top-echelon
of research institutions; continue to develop a strong sense of community;
strengthen GW’s infrastructure and libraries; and maintain a strong
financial base. For each objective a set of metrics was cited in the plan
to measure how well those goals are being met.
To gather information so that University management may begin that evaluation
process, a cross-divisional Strategic Plan Metrics Team was convened.
The team, led by Taina Shields, manager financial emergency/emergent issues
team, created a plan to define and and collect the 99 metrics in the Strategic
Plan.
The team is divided into two areas, one group responsible for defining
and collecting the metrics information, and the other responsible for
creating a system to house and report those definitions and data.
Among the 99 metrics listed in the strategic initiative are measures such
as: percentage of students report satisfaction with “overall quality
of education” in the graduating senior survey; the undergraduate
six-year graduation rate; revenue is allocated for junior faculty support
annually; overall expenditures for classroom and library information technology;
ranking of GW’s technology relative to peer institutions.
The key to each measurement, according to Shields, is the metric description
— the business-English definition of each measurement. Many of the
measures are already defined outside the University using formal standards
set either by government agencies or professional organizations. For the
rest, the team initiated a search throughout the University to ask how
the metrics should be defined .
The group is working within the University community to develop the definitions.
The first step is identifying the community surrounding each plan metric
— the data owners, stewards and producers. Owners, according the
team, are those ultimately responsible for the trend reflected in the
data, the producer is the person or group that creates that data and the
steward is the person who is most interested in seeing the positive trend
for that metric.
The team is in the process of working with these groups to define these
metrics.
“We are asking data owners, steward and producers, ‘Is this
metric already produced?’ If so, ‘how is it defined?’ and
‘how far back does the definition remain consistent?’ ”
says Shields.
The initial investigations by the team have revealed some good news, many
of the metrics cited by the plan are available and in some cases as much
as five years of baseline data is available.
“When we looked at the metrics we discovered that for many, roughly
two-thirds, the information was already there,” Shields said.
The big push this summer is collecting all of the data that’s already
available to set the baseline information, and working to establish the
tools needed to gather those metrics next year.
Meanwhile, the data collection subcommittee will choose the database system,
which the team hopes will be Web-based, to report the findings to the
Board of Trustees at its June 2005 meeting and eventually to the community.
“This is a very important project in support of the strategic plan,”
Shields said. “It is an important tool to allow Senior Management
to see if we’re on the right track in terms of the Strategic Plan.”
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
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