Earlier this year, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) completed its Postsecondary Data Partnership Assistance to Community Colleges grant. Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, since January of 2019, SHEEO has provided technical assistance and support for the National Student Clearinghouse’s (Clearinghouse) Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP). The Clearinghouse’s PDP platform was designed to improve and support the use of state- and institution-level postsecondary data and reduce related reporting burdens.
Through this grant, SHEEO provided convenings, presentations, research papers, guides, and a toolkit for institutions or state systems and agencies to establish and build on their capacity to report to the PDP. SHEEO also regularly met with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), and Jobs for the Future (JFF) to provide targeted technical assistance and support to their institutional cohorts. Listed below are the many resources provided over the course of the grant, with a description of their focus, contents, and impact:
- SHEEO’s PDP Toolkit: The toolkit is a public resource for higher education professionals interested in or already involved in the PDP and provides information that supports state and institutional adoption of the PDP. The toolkit explains why the PDP is important, how to get started, and how to submit and use data.
- SHEEO reports: SHEEO created several papers and guides with information related to the PDP, including a research paper on state-level PDP data field reporting and use and a guide for communicating value via two-year sector data resources. In partnership with Seamless Strategies, Inc., SHEEO provided PDP self-assessment and data submission guides and a report checklist. In partnership with ASA Research, SHEEO provided information on ways to improve strategic use and communication of PDP data.
- SHEEO convenings & presentations: In 2019, SHEEO convened a Community of Practice focused on PDP data reporting and held a SHEEO policy conference session on the ways to improve student data through the PDP. In 2020, SHEEO held a webinar on using the PDP for institutional and system change in uncertain times, with presentations on state and institutional perspectives, dashboards, and analysis-ready files.
Although the grant is completed, SHEEO will continue to maintain the PDP Toolkit and associated documents on the SHEEO website under the completed projects section.
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Acknowledgement: This blog is based on work funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Information contained within is that of the author(s) and does not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
