Syracuse University has partnered with Educational Advisory Board (EAB) to implement an online platform, Academic Performance Solutions (APS) to support ongoing program review. Evidence-based decisions are central to providing quality academic learning experiences. Key decisions include creating student support mechanisms, course planning, faculty hiring, and human and material resources. The platform displays the University’s data at different levels: student, program, department, school/college, and university. It also helps the University to benchmark its programs with other partner institutions.
Deans, associate and assistant deans, department chairs, program directors, and administrative staff involved in planning and course scheduling can use data from the APS system to inform their decision-making.
APS Access
Currently, access to APS is provided to the pilot team. If you are part of the pilot team, you can go to the APS system and sign in using your Syracuse University NetID and password.
APS Assistance
If you have questions about the APS system or would like a live demo, please contact iea@syr.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has the data been validated?
The APS platform feeds in data from our institutional student information system, along with human resource and finance data. The data have undergone several quality tests to assure the “correctness” of the data. Note the data are “activity-based” and NOT “census” data. This implies that the data are regularly updated, e.g., if a faculty member is not teaching in the current semester, they will not be counted in the faculty numbers provided.
How often are data updated?
Data are updated every business day.
How can the data be used?
The APS data are based on activity in real-time. For example, if a student is enrolled in a program but is not taking a course in a given semester, the student is not counted in the data.
APS allows for a wide range of analyses, including:
- Monitoring the health of the program and department.
- Identification of the majors and non-majors that the program and/or department is serving. (Names of the students cannot be identified).
- Identifying the demand and supply gap between the courses offered (presented as “bottlenecks”).
- Identification of courses with high DFW rates.
- Exploring the variability between students’ achievement across sections.
- Review of the human and material cost allocation to the department.
- Enrollments in courses to aid accurate course scheduling.
- Classroom space utilization.
This infographic illustrates how the data can be used to provide academic support, faculty line, capacity management, and budget process decisions.
What are the measures and how are they defined?
The key metrics found in APS include:
- Student enrollment
- Student credit hours
- Seat utilization and class size
- Fall to fall retention rate
- Fill rate
- Cross-listed courses
- Median credit hours
- Instructor student credit hour taught (by type)
- Course demand trends by major
- Course level suggestions for consolidation or expansion
- Student grades including D-F-Withdrawal rates across sections and courses
- Section variability reports determining the variability in students’ performance across sections
The definition of the metrics is available in the APS User Guide.
Can I get data for minors?
Currently, minors are not part of the APS system data analytics, but we are trying to map the minors into the system.