The IDEA Center

The IDEA Center seeks a high-energy individual passionate about learning, teaching, and leadership in higher education.  As a well established, rapidly growing not-for-profit organization, we value high quality work and a balanced life.  This is an exciting time to join the Center!
 
This individual will have the opportunity to work with clients from over 340 colleges and universities that use IDEA products and services, represent the Center at regional and national meetings, and direct the development of training materials to support the positive use of student rating and administrator feedback tools for purposes of evaluation, professional development, and programmatic assessment/accreditation.
 
If you have an earned doctorate and significant work experience in higher education with a demonstrated background and interest in teaching, higher education assessment/accreditation, student learning, performance evaluation, and administrative leadership, please review the full position description and application requirements.  
 

Now accepting registrations for the upcoming IDEA Users Group Meeting scheduled for May 30, 2010, preceding the Association of Institutional Research (AIR) Annual Forum in Chicago. The meeting will run from 8:00am to 12:00 noon and its purpose is to further develop on-campus expertise in the use of IDEA among faculty, administrators, and staff. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about best practices from others using IDEA on their campuses and from IDEA Center staff.   
 
The meeting will be interactive and provide participants with a number of resources about the use of student ratings of instruction.  We hope to see you in Chicago!

This Spring, staff from The IDEA Center will be traveling to a number of national conferences where they will be available to meet you, address your questions, and discuss the Center's products and resources. Here is where you can find us:

• January 20-23, AAC&U Annual Meeting, Washington DC
• February 11-12, Academic Chairpersons Conference, Orlando, FL
• March 15-18, The Chair Academy, Minneapolis, MN
• March 28-31, The League for Innovation, Baltimore, MD

If you won't be attending any of these meetings, please contact us and we'd be happy to talk to you (800-255-2757 or info@theideacenter.org).

Steve Benton, Senior Research Officer, recently published an article, along with his doctoral student, Jan Middendorf, in The Department Chair. (Middendorf, B. J. & Benton, S. L., "Trends in Chair Responsibilities," Fall 2009, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 23-25). They examined data collected from 1990 to 2007, using the IDEA Feedback for Department Chairs system. Results indicated that the importance chairs assigned to 15 responsibilities remained remarkably consistent across the years. In addition, chairs tended to receive the highest faculty ratings of their performance on the responsibilities chairs deemed most important. The strong relationship between chairs' ratings of importance and faculty ratings of performance supported the validity of The IDEA Feedback for Department Chairs system.

Congratulations to Pam Milloy at Grand View University who was a finalist for the POD Innovations Award at the 34th Annual Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network in Higher Education Conference for her work “Looking Beyond a Single Class:  A Tool for Extracting Themes and Trends in Student Evaluation Data.” Ms. Milloy, Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, developed an Excel worksheet that allows professors to synthesize IDEA Student Ratings of Instruction results from numerous courses and semesters.  Instructors then draw a manageable number of teaching methods and styles they might consider to enhance learning.  The simple worksheet has markedly increased the attention that faculty are giving to improving their teaching.

Unsure why your adjusted score goes up or down, or why they are even reported? In just 4 minutes this presentation answers questions on what drives the adjusted score, what it says about your students, and what it means to you. View the newly released video Understanding Adjusted Scores. Visit the Training menu to view all video titles and check back later to see new releases.  

Whether you need a refresher with IDEA Online, or simply would like to see what all the buzz is about, we invite you to view the IDEA Online Tutorial. This self paced tutorial is a practical guide that demonstrates the online system step-by-step. To set up an IDEA Online account or schedule a personal training session, please contact the Center at 800-255-2757. Click here for other IDEA Online resources.

The recent economic troubles our world faces are of concern to all of us. Recent news in higher education circles makes it abundantly clear that we are far from immune from these problems. In recognition that these difficult times will not be short lived, The IDEA Center pledges that it will not increase its rates for use of its student ratings system any earlier than July 1, 2011 (two and one-half years). 
 

Two new IDEA Papers have been published. Assessing Your Program-Level Plan by Susan Hatfield and The Learning Portfolio: A Powerful Idea for Significant Learning by John Zubizarreta provide useful ideas related to teaching in higher education. Previously published IDEA Papers are also available for download. Bookmark these valuable IDEA Papers or order a Full Set for your personal library.