Introduction

Oakland City University has a dedicated team of researchers dedicated to improving all facets of the university. Dr. Amy Satterly, along with the rest of her team, use survey data analysis to enact the appropriate changes. They gather and analyze their data with Remark Office OMR.

Background

The overriding responsibility of the Office of Institutional Assessment at Oakland City University is to support the university in its enhancement of intellectual, spiritual, physical, and social development of all students through a variety of assessment activities.

The Office of Institutional Assessment designs, plans, and implements the university’s assessment program, which covers placement testing, course evaluations, program evaluations, capstone testing, and graduate surveys. Periodic refinement of stated goals and objectives, as well as processes and assessment mechanisms, is conducted to promote the highest quality and most current practices available.

As Director of Assessment, Dr. Satterly develops, deploys, and analyzes all course evaluations and graduate surveys as well as any ad hoc surveys needed. She also gathers and analyzes student learning data for accreditation purposes. Before using Remark, surveys and data tools were created using traditional OMR survey software. If the number of surveys needed did not warrant ordering special OMR forms, forms were created and entered into Excel spreadsheets by hand. When looking for alternatives to the traditional OMR solution it was difficult to find solutions that fit their size and budget constraints. Amy wanted to switch to a more affordable and flexible survey solution that allowed her to create and print her own forms while scanning them with a regular image scanner. She chose Remark Office OMR to move away from buying expensive OMR survey sheets and having to use special scanners.

The Solution

Learning to use Remark Office OMR was fairly easy for Amy. She learned how to adjust to the requirements needed for establishing templates and defining areas, figure out how to set up images for the best scanning results, and analyze information and filter data like she had done in previous programs without too much difficulty. The webinars and tutorials were very helpful, and the money saved on ordering forms was fantastic! As a small school, they always had to order more than they needed and would have to throw out forms when they were updated.

Their graduate survey has been the largest project so far. It covered approximately four months from design to analysis and Amy worked alone processing the forms. Being able to scan such a large number of forms, see the fields as she addressed respondent errors, and easily correct them on screen were instrumental in cleaning up the data.

Amy says,”We use Remark software for surveys of all kinds as well as data collection for our general education learner outcomes. We will soon be using it for course evaluations as well.”

Favorite Feature

When asked about Amy’s favorite Remark feature she states, “1. Creating forms in a variety of standard software (Word, etc.), 2. Timing and flexibility – I don’t have to submit an order and wait on forms to come to me via mail, 3. No need for special scanners.”