Explore our how-to guides that will help you navigate the APS platform and learn how to use the data to inform decisions that impact enrollment growth, cost efficiency, and student outcomes. The how-to guides below help users learn about metrics relevant to each topic and where to find them in the APS platform.
Enrollment Growth
Manage Your Program Portfolio for Efficiency
Given changing student needs and preferences, it is critical for institutional leaders to frequently assess their program portfolio to avoid program proliferation.
Use this guide to learn how to use APS Program Analytics data to identify programs in your portfolio that require additional support based on enrollment and retention trends.
Plan a Course That Is Either Growing or Declining in Demand
A common challenge academic leaders face is offering the right courses, as well as the right number of sections to both efficiently use resources and avoid bottleneck courses that limit student progress. While rolling over course schedules term to term is often the norm, leveraging data helps academic leaders identify opportunities to better support student demand by making course adjustments.
Use this guide to learn how to use APS Course Planning Optimization (CPO) data, including course forecasts, to make proactive course planning decisions for the next term.
Monitor Course Registration During a Registration Window
No matter how many times the course scheduled is adjusted, it is seemingly never fine tuned enough. During a course registration window, academic leaders should keep a close pulse on registration numbers to surface opportunities to either add or remove sections.
Use this guide to learn how to use APS Course Planning Optimization (CPO) data to inform course adjustments and best accommodate the student demand that your academic unit is experiencing.
Cost Efficiency
Inform Your Academic Unit’s Review Process
Assessing individual program and department performance frequently using data allows unit leaders to understand their unit’s instructional resource user and identify opportunities for resource reallocation or growth.
Use this guide to learn how to use APS Program Analytics data to support your annual unit health check-ups or traditional program review.
Make Data-Informed Faculty Line Requests
The process to allocate new faculty lines varies widely both within and across institutions. In all cases, including the right data in your request tells a more comprehensive and compelling story about why a new faculty line is needed and complements qualitative documentation.
Use the guide to learn which metrics in your APS platform support your faculty line decisions.
Monitor Faculty Course Loads
Examining course loads includes understanding not only the number of sections taught, but also the student level and size of the class. Academic leaders should use this information to ensure that expectations are met for how faculty spend time, as well as to ensure that students are exposed to different teaching styles and curriculum.
Use the guide to learn how to monitor faculty course loads in your department and find potential opportunities in the APS platform.
Support Budget Planning with Benchmark Data
As academic leaders who are responsible for managing the budgets for their respective academic units, deans and department chairs can leverage APS platform data to better understand their resource allocations and make requests for additional support.
Use this guide to learn how to support budget requests with APS Benchmarks.
Student Outcomes
Diagnose Student Demand and Progress Barriers
An important component in assessing academic unit health is analyzing barriers to student enrollment and progress in individual programs.
Use this guide to learn how to use APS Program Analytics data to support your annual unit health check-ups or traditional program review.
Identify Opportunities for Course Completion Improvement
One critical measure of student progress is whether or not students earn credit for attempted courses, which impacts time-to-degree, financial aid eligibility, and persistence. Institutions can prioritize course completion improvements by targeting courses in which a large number of students are struggling to earn credit.
Use the guide to learn how APS supports your goals to improve student progress.
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