Mott Community College’s Official Survey Administration Protocol:

The Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRDS) shall coordinate all feedback data collections involving Mott community members, including responsibility for maintaining a college-wide calendar of officially approved surveys and evaluations.

Any MCC employee or student shall be empowered to administer a survey or evaluation provided they submit for preliminary review all proposed materials and receive approval from IRDS, the Executive Cabinet, and the Institutional Review Board (IRB), if appropriate, confirming that the data collection is for a legitimate business and/or research purpose.

In addition to coordinating the approval process and maintaining the survey calendar, the IRDS office shall have primary responsibility for administering any approved surveys or evaluations where the purpose is one or more of the following: academic or operational assessment, regional or programmatic accreditation, compliance, strategic planning, or academic research connected to the College’s institutional effectiveness efforts.

For all other approved surveys and evaluations undertaken for purposes not listed above and deemed exempt from IRDS administration, survey sponsors shall be responsible for demonstrating the extent to which collected feedback leads to meaningful and quality continuous improvement practices and evidence-based decision making.

Surveys and evaluations are important tools for educational measurement. Researchers use these tools to collect feedback data, which in turn can be used to assess needs, evaluate processes, and explain outcomes. The purposeful collection of feedback data via survey and evaluation instruments is an essential part of the continuous improvement cycle, a process by which universities and colleges define, monitor, and document institutional effectiveness.

At Mott Community College, faculty and staff researchers use survey and evaluation data to inform evidence-based decisions. Feedback data allow campus leaders to take the pulse of community members about emergent trends, establish benchmarks, and evaluate progress toward strategic goals. These data enhance the College’s ability to achieve and maintain institutional effectiveness, a critical component of accreditation and compliance.

Changes in the culture of higher education accountability along with the proliferation of cost-effective, web based questionnaire technology have led to an increase in survey and evaluation activity at Mott. Consequently, this protocol and its supplementary guidance are intended to strengthen Mott’s institutional effectiveness initiatives by clarifying when projects involving the collection of feedback data must be coordinated with and/or administered by Mott’s Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRDS).

Many types of survey and evaluation projects can be launched through Google Forms, a tool that offers a distributed model for survey administration and data sharing among employees. However, for essential data collections* that warrant a survey or evaluation, a decentralized model imposes several additional and unique burdens on the independent researcher:

* Essential data collections refer to surveys or evaluations that support Mott’s operational or academic assessment, program evaluation, regional or program-specific accreditation, regulatory compliance, strategic planning, or other research connected to Mott’s institutional effectiveness efforts.

  • It requires the survey administrator to other feedback data collections taking place at Mott simultaneously. This is vital to help avoid survey fatigue among subpopulations who receive invitations to participate in questionnaires more frequently than others. It also ensures that each survey project is suitably aligned with Mott’s overall strategic plan and sub-elements like the holistic research agenda for student/employee success.
  • It obligates the researcher to develop their own quasi-experimental design without the benefit of methodology consulting from IRDS. This can result in survey projects that skimp (or omit entirely) critical elements such as developing research questions (RQs) and concept maps for the survey instrument, crafting a data analysis plan, disseminating results to relevant stakeholders, and identifying actionable outcomes that facilitate “closing the assessment loop.”
  • It necessitates extraordinary attention to regulatory and compliance matters, such as regulations and best practices governing data management and confidentiality. Most survey sponsors and independent researchers are not equipped with the resources (in terms of technology) to handle sensitive data and records.

  1. Prevent survey fatigue in specific populations.
  2. Prevent redundant and/or overlapping surveys.
  3. Promote effective survey design and research methodology.
  4. Create training opportunities for the community on survey and evaluation best practices.
  5. Centralize key aspects involving the administration of assessment, accreditation, and compliance-related surveys and evaluations.
  6. Safeguard the security of collected data and the confidentiality of participants.
  7. Support data-informed, evidence-based decision making by ensuring community members’ use of survey and evaluation data is aligned with MCC’s strategic plan and its holistic culture of continuous improvement and institutional effectiveness.

The summary below is a guide to the general process of launching a survey or evaluation at Mott Community College when it falls under the official protocol. Please ensure you have carefully reviewed and completed each of the steps. IRDS staff are available to help at each point in the process.

  1. Review Mott’s official protocol on survey administration, as well as any corresponding policies and protocols that govern surveys and evaluations, e.g., Approval Protocols for Primary Research Conducted at Mott Community College (IRB).
  2. Visit the survey calendar [website pending] and view the survey examples [website pending] to help prepare your survey request submission to IRDS.
  3. Submit your request through the Data and Research Request Form on IRDS’s website.
  4. Stay tuned for updates from IRDS about next steps, including additional information we may need in order to appropriately route your request.

This will be an embedded Google Calendar on the IRDS website that enables all community members to view and search details about past, current, and future survey administrations.

This will be a supplemental page on the IRDS website that explains additional details about MCC’s survey and evaluation practices as they relate to the official protocol. It will cover all expectations that survey sponsors and IRDS are expected to uphold as the process unfolds.

IRDS employees will operationalize their responsibility to coordinate surveys under the Survey Administration Protocol by adhering to the following practices:

Survey Policy: IRDS will ensure publication of the official survey protocol on MCC’s website and other venues as appropriate, e.g., the Employee and Student Handbooks, Human Subjects/IRB website, etc.

Guidance and Documentation: IRDS will maintain a repository of supplemental guidance documents and provide other resources to Mott’s community, such as:

  • Guidance and training for the community about effective research design, survey methodology, dissemination of results/findings arising from feedback data, and development of action steps for use in continuous improvement.
  • Information about compliance with regulatory and statutory requirements, e.g., use of financial incentives, preserving participants’ rights and confidentiality, and referral to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) when appropriate.
  • Survey administration protocols and supplemental guidance, including a list of surveys that do not need to be submitted to IRDS through the request form and a compilation of prior survey requests that were deemed exempt or eligible for expedited administration by IRDS to serve as a reference for future requests.
  • Internal consulting services to MCC staff, faculty, students, and friends, including information about the availability of data sources for community use, submission deadlines, recommendations to help avoid oversampling of frequently surveyed subpopulations by administering surveys to the smallest number of participants necessary to ensure validity and reliability of findings, providing secure access to collected data and reports generated from those data, etc.

Survey Calendar: IRDS will maintain a survey calendar for the community’s use and information, including details such as the target subpopulation, estimated sample size, and date range of the data administration. The calendar will include all surveys occurring at MCC, including those determined to be exempt from IRDS oversight/administration but that have been reported to IRDS in accordance with the official protocol.

Methodology Consulting: IRDS will provide survey research design and methodology consulting for community members, including personalized group or individual training, instructional resources curated on its website, and coordination with other resources on campus such as the Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL).

Data & Research Request Form: IRDS requires prospective survey/evaluation sponsors to submit a survey request form. The submission form will include:

  • Proposed start/end dates for the survey.
  • Research question and topic/theme/concepts to be explored.
  • Intended audience, subject, and/or participants.
  • Instrument items, including trigger logic for optional/follow-up questions.
  • Anticipated action steps to be taken at the conclusion of the survey.

Note: These are the minimal required items for IRDS to coordinate next steps related to any particular feedback data collection. Additional details may be needed for IRDS to effectively administer the survey.

Survey Administration: IRDS will review survey requests submitted through the Data and Research Request Form , which will provide IRDS staff with an opportunity to:

  • Determine the research category into which the survey belongs.
  • Identify IRDS’s anticipated level of involvement in survey administration:
    • Exempt from IRDS administration.
    • Eligible for expedited IRDS administration.
    • Requiring full IRDS administration.

    Note: The Survey Examples document contains examples of the types of surveys that must be administered by IRDS versus surveys that have been deemed exempt from or eligible for expedited IRDS administration.

  • Evaluate the survey request in the context of current research and data collection needs of the community, prioritizing requests as appropriate to maintain strategic alignment with other College priorities and standards.
  • Offer feedback on proposed research design and request revisions, if applicable.
  • Communicate a final approval/denial/needs revision decision to the requester in a timely manner, as well as conveying logistical information about the timeline for survey administration and anticipated availability of results.

Post-Survey Action Items: IRDS will develop and implement further protocols/practices in collaboration with campus stakeholders to ensure that survey sponsors follow through with previously identified action steps as they pertain to institutional effectiveness, e.g., assessment, accreditation, strategic planning, regulatory compliance, etc.

Note: As new campus-wide policies and protocols emerge, IRDS reserves the right to amend some or all of the above practices. IRDS will strive to make these changes as seamless as possible and will solicit feedback from the MCC community before incorporating any major changes to the supplemental guidance documentation.

Professional Development: IRDS staff will participate in regular professional development to stay informed on current and emerging trends, including survey, evaluation, feedback, and reporting tools, techniques, and technologies, as well as traditional and experimental methods and techniques for analyzing survey data.

Revision History

April 30, 2024 Suggested revisions from Dr. Beverly Walker-Griffea, MCC President
April 26, 2024 Draft proposal finalized by Drew Thiemann, Executive Director of IRDS