Institutional Success Indicator Definitions
Student Success Definitions |
Community Enrichment Definitions |
Student Success
First- to second-term retention
Definition: Measures fall-to-winter term retention of fall, first-time certificate or degree seeking students. A student must be enrolled as of week 4 winter term to be counted as successfully retained. This is a measure internal to COCC.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2017 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The five-year average first to second term retention rate from 2014-15 to 2018-19 was 76.1%. The fall 2017 cohort showed a 78.1% retention rate. Historically, this indicator fluctuates and COCC set an aspirational ultimate target of 80% (2% increase) by 2023 in the spirit of maintaining an upward trend.
Update Frequency: Annually the 4th week of winter term.
Metric Owner: Alicia Moore and Annemarie Hamlin
Fall-to-fall retention
Definition: Measures fall-to-fall retention of fall, first time certificate or degree seeking students. A student must be enrolled as of week 4 the following fall term to be counted as successfully retained. Students completing a certificate during the first year are included as the majority continue their education. This is a measure internal to COCC.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2017 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The five-year average fall-to-fall retention rate from 2014-15 to 2018-19 was 47.9%. The fall 2017 cohort showed a 46.1% retention rate. A National Student Clearinghouse report stated that nationally, for the same fall, 48.9% students returned to their 2 year public institution the following fall. Historically, this indicator fluctuates and COCC set an aspirational ultimate target at 51.3% (5% above the national and an 11% increase) to be achieved by 2023.
Update Frequency: Annually the 4th week of fall term.
Metric Owner: Alicia Moore and Annemarie Hamlin
Passing college level math in first year
Definition: Measures fall, first-time students who pass a college-level math within their first year. College-level math is a course that fulfills a foundational requirement in mathematics for transfer degrees or a related instruction requirement in computation for a CTE degree and certificate. This is a measure internally tracked by COCC.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2017 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The fall 2017 cohort showed 26.9% of students passed college level math in their first year. COCC has targeted interventions towards improving this and set an aspirational ultimate target of 32.3% (20% increase) by 2023.
Update Frequency: Annually after spring term.
Metric Owner: Annemarie Hamlin
Passing college level writing in first year
Definition: Measures fall, first-time students who pass a college-level writing within their first year. College-level writing is a course that fulfills a foundational requirement in writing and information literacy for transfer degrees or a related instruction requirement in communication for a CTE degree and certificate. This is a measure internally tracked by COCC.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2017 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The fall 2017 cohort showed 42.1% of students passed college level writing in their first year. COCC has targeted interventions towards improving this and set an aspirational ultimate target of 46.3% (10% increase) by 2023.
Update Frequency: Annually after spring term.
Metric Owner: Annemarie Hamlin
Graduation Rates
Definition: Measures fall, first-time, full-time, certificate or degree seeking students who earn a completion within three years.
Data Source: Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) - Federal Reporting
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2014 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The fall 2014 cohort showed 19.9% of students earned a completion in three years. For the same fall 2014 cohort, the national graduation rate for 2-year postsecondary institutions was 26.6% and the top five Oregon community colleges showed 26% or higher. COCC set an aspirational ultimate target of 26% (31% increase) by 2028.
Update Frequency: Annually during winter IPEDS collection.
Metric Owner: Alicia Moore and Annemarie Hamlin
Transfer Rates
Definition: Measures fall, first-time, full-time, certificate or degree seeking students who transfer to another higher education institution (two-year or four-year) before earning a completion within three years.
Data Source: Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) - Federal Reporting
Baseline Year and Rationale: Fall 2014 Cohort. The year prior to establishing the indicator and target.
Target Rationale: The fall 2014 cohort showed 20.9% of students transferring to another institution, within three years, before earning a completion. For the same fall 2014 cohort, the top five Oregon community colleges showed 21% or higher and for the fall 2015 cohort 25% or higher. COCC set an aspirational ultimate target of 25% (20% increase) by 2028.
Update Frequency: Annually during winter IPEDS collection.
Metric Owner: Alicia Moore and Annemarie Hamlin
Community Enrichment
High school students taking credit courses
Definition: Number of high school students taking COCC credit courses while in high school during one academic year, either through COCC's College Now program or as a concurrent HS student.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2020-21 - November 2021, COCC hired a High School Partnerships Coordinator responsible for developing, coordinating, and evaluating academic programs in partnership with regional school districts, individual high schools, and key College personnel. Due to the intentional investment of resources, this serves as a good point from which to measure growth.
Target Rationale: A 2% projected growth per year is a conservative yet reasonable goal. Overall high school population growth is projected to decline. High schools are experiencing pandemic fatigue which is limiting teachers' abilities to take on more initiatives. COCC also has limited capacity for growth in faculty mentorship and engagement. A staff of two in the College Now program also means streamlining and implementing improved policies and procedures will stretch capacity building and overall growth.
Update Frequency: Annually after final academic year state reporting
Metric Owner: Krissa Harris and Cindy Lenhart
HS students taking credit courses and matriculating to COCC
Definition: Percentage of high school students taking COCC credit courses while in high school, at any point in their high school career, and matriculate to COCC one year post HS graduation.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2019-20 high school graduates. COCC continues to navigate the transition out of the COVID-19 pandemic and in to an evolving landscape within education. As the pandemic subsides, COCC will gain greater access to high school partnerships. Through intentional collaboration efforts, COCC will engage with high school partners in a number of strategic ways.
Target Rationale: A 5% increase over five years. Building capacity within College Now (CN) to deliver services and increases in CN classes will support this 1% per year increase. It is essential that COCC become more intentional in building high school partnerships and offerings. Competition from colleges and universities outside of the area is an immediate concern.
Update Frequency: Annually after final academic year state reporting
Metric Owner: Krissa Harris and Cindy Lenhart
COCC students dually enrolled with OSU-Cascades
Definition: Percentage of COCC certificate-degree seeking (CDS) students dually enrolled in OSU-Cascades Degree Partnership Program (DPP)
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: Prior to the 2019-20 academic year, all students who were admitted to OSU-C were automatically admitted to COCC. Recognizing that many students did not intend to take a COCC class, and to reduce confusion on communications to students, COCC and OSU-C agreed to change its admissions process so that students opted in to being a DPP student as part of their admissions application.
Target Rationale: There is no national standard for dual admissions programs. COVID-19 restrictions prohibited COCC and OSU staff from being in area high schools, which typically serves as the primary conduit for communicating DPP information to prospective students and high school counselors. The result of this, as well as other challenges, led to a decline in DPP students. Therefore, COCC and OSU will embark on new activities designed to rebuild these numbers, noting that this is estimated to take two or more years to accomplish. Therefore, the 2022-23 target was changed to better reflect the new enrollment reality, with a longer range goal of 8%.
Update Frequency: Annually after final academic year state reporting
Metric Owner: Alicia Moore, Tyler Hayes and Diane Pritchard
Maintain healthy Career Technical Education (CTE) advisory boards
Definition: Percentage of COCC advisory boards deemed healthy based on an annually administered survey and evaluation rubric.
Data Source: COCC developed survey administered annually to all current CTE advisory boards
Baseline Year and Rationale: The College introduced an annual survey to CTE Advisory boards starting spring 2020 making this metric possible.
Target Rationale: In order to both meet the needs of business and industry workforce training, and to comply with mandates for active advisory board interaction, the strategic planning goal workgroup developed a goal of 100% healthy advisory board activity and interaction.
Update Frequency: Annually after the survey administration
Metric Owner: Julie Downing and Michael Fisher
Workplace experience participation
Definition: Percentage of credit students participating in a workplace experience course offered by COCC annually. A workplace experience course contains an experience for students to hone their skills in a workplace setting after learning and practicing skills in course work.
Data Source: Courses flagged and tracked in Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2018-19 | This was determined as the baseline year because it was the last year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that we had all four terms in which students would have the opportunity to participate in workplace experiences.
Target Rationale: To maintain 8% of credit students participating because while the number of CTE workplace experience opportunities is robust and consistent, there are fewer opportunities in transfer areas. Until we begin a campaign to increase these, we should be tracking on what we can identify as consistent.
Update Frequency: Annually
Metric Owner: Instructional Leadership
Number of college-sponsored events offered
Definition: Number of events outside of traditional instructional offerings, and includes any activity formally sponsored or endorsed by the college where at least some of the intended participants are external stakeholders.
Data Source: Collected and tracked by the Office of College Advancement
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2019-20 | The number of events prior to COVID closures for college sponsored non-instructional events.
Target Rationale: The College's ability to sponsor events is expected to rebound and grow post-COVID, and as the College is able to 'host' more participants when events are offered virtually.
Update Frequency: Annually in July for the prior academic year.
Metric Owner: Zak Boone and Jennifer Peters
Participation in college-sponsored events offered
Definition: Number of attendees who participated, whether in person or virtually. Total participation all events included.
Data Source: Collected and tracked by the Office of College Advancement
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2019-20 |The number of participants prior to COVID closures for college sponsored non-instructional events.
Target Rationale: The College intends to grow event participation and will regularly assess a balance of offerings in various delivery methods that engender participation.
Update Frequency: Annually in July for the prior academic year
Metric Owner: Zak Boone and Jennifer Peters
Continuing Education Repeat Rates
Definition: Number of students taking open-enrollment classes for Community Education or Business Employee Services in one academic year who then took a class the subsequent academic year.
Data Source: Data match with the Learning Resource Network (LERN)
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2020-21 - In 2021 Continuing Education began a major restructure in the administration of non-credit programming. This restructure will better align non-credit priorities and allow for better understanding of non-credit student needs in our communities. Covid has allowed for new modalities of course delivery that will continue into the future. These intentional changes will drive resource allocation and serves as a good starting point to measure growth and progress.
Target Rationale: LERN national repeat rate for community education is 30-50% with a lower percentage for Professional/Workforce Development. With the restructure now in place and the continuation of modalities for course delivery, a conservative goal would help us focus on the reasons students are not repeating and work with Marketing and Public Relations (MPR) on focused marketing to repeat students.
Update Frequency: Annually by August 1
Metric Owner: Stephanie Goetsch and Stephen Newcombe
Continuing Education New Students
Definition: Number of students taking open-enrollment classes for Community Education or Business Employee Services for the first time since April 2017, which is when the Enrole software was introduced.
Data Source: Enrole Informer Report
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2020-21 - In 2021 Continuing Education began a major restructure in the administration of non-credit programming. This restructure will better align non-credit priorities and allow for better understanding of non-credit student needs in our communities. Covid has allowed for new modalities of course delivery that will continue into the future. These intentional changes will drive resource allocation and serves as a good starting point to measure growth and progress.
Target Rationale: LERN is not able to verify the new student percentage at this time. Until the national new student rate can be verified and we have a better understanding of what parameters are for counting new students, it is reasonable to maintain a new student rate at the same level over the last few years.
Update Frequency: Annually by August 1
Metric Owner: Stephanie Goetsch and Stephen Newcombe
Total value of COCC Foundation scholarships & other awards
Definition: Total scholarship and other awards disbursed to students including emergency and childcare funds, scholarship awards, and other awards to students for educational costs.
Data Source: Banner
Baseline Year and Rationale: 2019-20 with the baseline number reflecting a general average of scholarship and other award values.
Target Rationale: The scholarship program will be at the forefront of the Foundation’s mission, however staff continue to actively share the growing needs beyond tuition/fee scholarships with donors of all types. (Individual, corporate and foundation.)
Update Frequency: Annually in November (audited financials)
Metric Owner: Zak Boone and Brittany Nichols