Frequently Asked Questions

Institutional research involves the collection, analysis and interpretation of information descriptive of an institution and its activities, including its students, faculty, staff, programs, management and operations. Institutional data are used internally for decision-making (e.g., strategic planning, assessment, departmental self-studies) and are also reported to federal, national, regional, and state agencies (e.g., IPEDS, MSCHE, NCAA, HEDS). Institutional reporting secures the College’s reputation in the public space and provides benchmark comparisons and trends for decision-making.

​Assessment is a systematic process of inquiry and innovation that involves gathering qualitative and/or quantitative data to gauge progress on our goals. When conducted​ properly, assessment provides faculty, staff and administrative leaders with information about where changes to processes and practices might be needed, and where to invest effort and resources to improve important outcomes such as student learning, program completion, career-readiness, student and staff satisfaction, faculty scholarship, resource management and others. See our Guiding Principles to learn more about how assessment works at Queens College. For other assessment related questions, please see our Assessment FAQs.

The Office of Institutional Effectiveness (OIE) provides data to QC academic and adminstrative departments to inform student success initiatives, to support program development and/or evaluation, and to guide strategic planning.

To request data from OIE , send an email to qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu with the following information:

1. Which department/program is requesting the data?
2. What questions are you are trying to answer?
3. What specific data elements do you need?
4. From what year(s) or term(s) do you need the data?
5. How will this information be used and/or disseminated?
6. ​What is the time frame of your project?

Note: Please provide OIE a 3-week lead ahead of time for data requests.

• Student demographics
• Graduation and retention rates
• Program data (e.g., faculty headcount, grades distribution)
• Financial Aid information

• Personally Identifiable information
• FERPA protected information

Since this depends on the nature of the data that has been shared with you, please consult OIE.

​Several interactive data displays on our website allow users to select a prior term to display historical data and some displays show trends over time. 

Yes! OIE provides assistance with all aspects of survey implementation, and we encourage all departments at QC who are engaged in survey research to share their surveys with us, as we can provide expert feedback on survey design. We can also assist with survey implementation (via Survey Monkey or Microsoft Forms), and survey data visualization (via Tableau), including instrument design, validity, sample creation, administration, analysis of responses and summary of results (subject to availability and existing survey schedule).

What you can expect from OIE:

• OIE can review existing survey instruments or help you create new ones.
• OIE can create the list of the population to be surveyed (census or random sampling).
• OIE can field the survey for you and send several email reminders to non-respondents.
• OIE can keep you informed of your survey’s progress (e.g. response rates).
• OIE can provide a summary of the survey results within one-two weeks following the closing date of the survey. Special analyses, such as survey results by demographic and academic characteristics, require additional time to complete.
• De-identified survey data can be provided upon request.
• If incentives are offered, OIE can randomly select the appropriate number of winners for you. You will be responsible for purchasing the incentives, contacting the winners, distributing the incentives, and completing any administrative work regarding the incentives.

If designing your own survey, review our Survey Guidelines and Best Practices. See our Program Assessment Survey Template for examples of appropriate question items and answer options.

To request assistance with a survey project, send an email to qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu with answers to the following questions:

1. Which department/program is making the request?
2. What question(s) do you hope the survey will answer?
3. Who is the target population?
4. How will the survey results be used?
5. ​What is the time frame of your project?
6. What type of survey assistance do you need?

*Please note that from planning to reporting, the amount of time a survey project takes will vary depending on the scope of the project and its target population. Generally, OIE holds a series of planning meetings with the stakeholders interested in survey data collection to gather information on the project’s purpose, instrumentation, audience, and timeline. After survey implementation, the results will be presented as time allows or as needed for informed decision making.

Yes! OIE aims to promote a more meaningful and intuitive approach to higher education assessment practices. We believe that assessment should not only make sense and facilitate evidence-based decision making, but also build a culture of collaboration and innovation. With research methods and data analytics expertise, OIE can help you shape an assessment activity to make it valid and driven by answerable questions, help you keep your assessment plan on track, help you interpret the assessment findings with data visualization dashboards and help you facilitate discussions with your colleagues about the results. Assessment projects often include request for institutional data and requests for survey assistance. Check out our Introduction to Academic Assessment and our Guidelines for Administrative Assessment.

To learn more about Assessment at QC, please visit our Assessment website.

To request assistance from OIE, send an email to qc.oie@qc.cuny.edu.

The CUNY Office of Institutional Research (OIRA) conducts a wide variety of quantitative analysis to guide policy and evaluate academic programs and administrative processes at CUNY. CUNY-wide data reports can be found on the​ OIRA website.

​There are two versions of Tableau that the OIE staff oversee, Tableau Public and Tableau Server. Tableau Public is a platform which stores Tableau dashboards which the OIE staff has published for public use, requiring no password to gain access. The QC OIE Tableau Public profile can be found here.

Tableau Server is a platform which stores Tableau dashboards which the OIE staff has published only to a limited number of Queens College faculty and staff members, which requires users to login using their QC credentials. We have a limited number of Tableau Server licenses at Queens College. Currently Department Chairs and a small number of other faculty and staff have access.

To access data displays available on Tableau Server, go to tableau.qc.cuny.edu​ and log in with you QC credentials/CAMS account (the user id and password you use to log in to your work computer on campus). Contact the ITS Help Desk help.desk@qc.cuny.edu or 718-997-4444 for help with your QC account information.​

​Tableau offers free training videos on their website as well as YouTube.

There are also tutorials available from Lynda.com.

Please visit the Instructional Guide titled “Workload Collection Process”. ​

​Instructional (teaching) workload is automatically collected in CUNYfirst when instructors are assigned to classes by department staff. By default, the workload hours for a class are the same as the class contact hours. Departments may need to adjust the default workload values in CUNYfirst to account for JUMBO sections (upward adjustments) or TEAM TEACHING, CROSS LISTED CLASSES, RESEARCH/IND STUDY CLASSES (downward adjustments). The departments are responsible for making those adjustments within the first month of the semester.

Please visit the Instructional Guide titled “Adjustments for Instructional Workload.”

The Provost collects annual workload plans from each academic departments. These plans are then provided to staff in the Office of Institutional Effectiveness for data entry into CUNYfirst (prior to 2017-18 departments were responsible for managing the non-instructional workload values in CUNYfirst. OIE took over that responsibility in an effort to ease the burden on academic departments.

The Graduate Center enters teaching and administrative workload into CUNYfirst for all QC faculty who teach at the Graduate Center. Graduate Center workload should not be entered into CUNYfirst at Queens College.

​​OIE provides each department with a form (as a Google Sheet spreadsheet) for reporting each faculty member’s expected instructional and non-instructional workload. Departments are asked to report teaching and non-instructional workload for each faculty member for both the fall and spring terms. Any changes to non-instructional workload must be communicated in an email to Suwen Brunot (Suwen.brunot@qc.cuny.edu) to be reflected in CUNYfirst.​

​You may contact Suwen Brunot (sbrunot@qc.cuny.edu) or Rachél Fester (rachel.fester@qc.cuny.edu) with any corrections to non-instructional workload entries.

​In CUNYfirst, a faculty member with workload at both Queens and The Graduate Center must look at separate screens to see workload at both institutions. OIE has made available a report that combines workload at both institutions into a single report so faculty and chairs can have a more comprehensive view of individual faculty member’s workload. Please contact Suwen Brunot (suwen.brunot@qc.cuny.edu) or Rachél Fester (rachel.fester@qc.cuny.edu) for access to that report.

Please visit the Instructional Guide titled “Assigning Instructors to Classes with the correct job code” for more information.

In order for an instructor (full- or part-time faculty member) to be assigned to a class (and to get workload credit for that class) the instructor must be listed in the CUNYfirst Instructor/Advisor table and associated with the department that offers the course. See the document “Requesting Instructors to be added to the table” for the process for requesting to add an instructor to the CUNYfirst Instructor/Advisor table.

​Please visit the Instructional Guide titled “Requesting Instructors to be added to the table”.

You may contact Suwen Brunot (suwen.brunot@qc.cuny.edu) or Rachél Fester (rachel.fester@qc.cuny.edu) with a list of instructors who should be removed from the Instructor/Advisor table. Please provide full names as displayed on CUNYfirst and EMPLIDs.

OIE has developed some training guides that provide information to ensure that workload is assigned managed properly by staff in academic departments. Please see the instructional guides available here.

​You may contact Suwen Brunot (suwen.brunot@qc.cuny.edu) or Rachél Fester (rachel.fester@qc.cuny.edu) with any questions or concerns.