Committee reports to: Provost and Executive Vice President
Provides oversight for the process of annual self assessment, which is used for continual improvement of all divisions and units of the university. The committee reviews all unit assessment plans and provides feedback to units. Members are appointed with no specific term length.
MSU established the Institutional Effectiveness (IE) Committee as a standing committee that reports to the Provost and Executive Vice President. This committee provides oversight for the annual self-assessment process. It reviews all IE Reports, provides feedback to units, and coordinates with the SACSCOC reaffirmation process. Membership consists of elected and appointed administrators, faculty, and staff.
The IE Committee review process begins in October or November of each year. Each fall, the Chair of the committee convenes a meeting to review the Institutional Effectiveness process. Members are paired with a partner, and all of the university's IE reports are allocated among the teams (each team usually has between 10 and 15 reports to review). No member of the IE Committee may review a program within his or her own college or unit. The committee has designated rubrics for evaluating each IE report: academic and non-academic. Based on these rubrics, members review the IE reports individually and then meet with their partners to discuss their scores. The team then settles on a validated score, which is submitted to OIRE. The validated scores are compiled into feedback reports, which each unit receives during the spring semester as they begin planning the next year's assessment cycle. Based on the results of the feedback reports, OIRE staff may take actions such as provide more training to the personnel responsible for completing the annual IE reports.
Mississippi State's Institutional Effectiveness process has improved over the years thanks to the peer review process of the IE Committee and staff within OIRE. Based on the IE Committee rubric, much improvement can be seen from the state of IE reports in 2010 to 2016 and 2021. In particular, the number and appropriateness of outcomes and assessment procedures has improved dramatically over the years.
| Rubric category | 2010 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 3-5 outcomes are reasonable | 58.7% | 93.4% | |||||
| 3-5 outcomes can be assessed | 50.8% | 79.8% | |||||
| Instructional units have learning outcomes | 54.1% | 89.1% | |||||
| 3-5 learning outcomes (new 2017) | 80.2% | 82.8% | 82.3% | 97.4% | 100% | ||
| No process outcomes (new 2017) | 95.2% | 99.4% | 97.8% | 98.2% | 100% | ||
| Assessment procedures measure outcomes | 34.4% | 69.8% | |||||
| Assessment procedures are appropriate | 34.1% | 88.5% | 85.6% | 90.2% | 92.5% | 98.2% | 98.5% |
| Adequate number of procedures | 41.6% | 91.3% | |||||
| Provides sufficient data for results | 42.8% | 66.7% | 60.5% | 71.2% | 68.8% | 95.6% | 91.9% |
| Action has been taken for improvement | 31.4% | 40.0% | 48.5% | 47.9% | 52.7% | 58.8% | 51.1% |
Because 90% or more of our units were scoring "Excellent" in certain areas of the rubric, the IE Committee decided to make adjustments in 2017 to help improve the quality of the reports. Instead of looking for 3-5 outcomes, we specified 3-5 learning outcomes for Academic Programs and at least 1 learning outcome with program outcomes for Academic Support units. In 2021, all units had the appropriate number of learning outcomes and all process outcomes had been eliminated. The last column (a.k.a. "Use of Results") remains the last IE component with room for improvement. As more programs work through their revised outcomes with better data collection methods, the process will produce more usable results that can then be used to improve the learning environment for students.
Mississippi State has decided that starting in 2018, the administrative units will no longer go through the IE Committee. These units will still need to write annual IE reports; however, these reports will be evaluated as the State of Excellence strategic plan is reviewed.
Last Updated: August 1, 2022