Almost All SMA2 Metrics & Targets In a Dashboard

This dashboard summarizes almost all of the metrics and targets described in the 2017-2020 Ontario University Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMA2). These metrics and targets are all available on the MTCU website and other locations, but I have yet to find a comparison of system-wide metrics or compilation of the institutional metrics.

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You can select multiple items to compare by clicking them while pressing the ctrl key on a PC, Command key on a Mac. Adblockers sometimes block the Microsoft content.

The 12-page dashboard contains the following system-wide metrics and targets:

1. Student Experience
2. Innovation in Teaching and Learning Excellence
3. Access & Equity Demographic Targets
   Numbers and percentages of student populations.
4. Access & Equity Demographic Targets for OSAP and Transfers
5. Areas of Strength
   The grid above contains frequency, the matrix below contains the university’s name on the left, rank of the item across the top “1” could be an X or another marker if I better understood PowerBI.
6. Areas of Expansion
   See note above.
7. Financial Sustainability
8. Research Excellence & Impact
   Minus citation and publication data.
9. Innovation, Economic Development Targets
   6 month and 2-year employment targets.
10. Weighted Grant Units
11. Projected Enrollment
12. Institutional Specific Metrics
    All of the institutional specific metrics across all areas.
    

    Institutional Specific Metrics

    102550100 entries per page

    Search:

    Area	Metrics and targets	Used by	Frequency
    Student Experience	Number of substantive interactions between the learning common’s services and students	Algoma University	1
    Research Excellence and Impact	Number of research chairs	Algoma University	4
    Research Excellence and Impact	Number of research chairs	Lakehead University	4
    Research Excellence and Impact	Number of research chairs	Laurentian University	4
    Student Experience	Quality of the co-curricular experience as expressed by the CCR Intensity Matrix.	Algoma University	1
    Student Experience	Number of courses offered in a non-traditional format (e.g., online, blended, accelerated, spring-summer offering) from baseline in 2016-17	Brock University	1
    Student Experience	Number of First-Year Experiential Opportunities (e.g. first-year seminars, science seminars, business intro) and number of students in first-year courses with laboratories	Carleton University	1
    Student Experience	Number of professional development opportunities for graduate students (e.g. workshops and networking events) per year	Carleton University	1
    Student Experience	National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) student-reported satisfaction: overall experience	Western University	1
    Student Experience	SSE student-reported satisfaction: choice	Lakehead University	1

    Showing 1 to 10 of 244 entries

I described the basic structure of the agreements in this post.

This dashboard is intended to provide a comparison of Ontario University SMA system-wide metrics. More than creating a league table of metrics, this dashboard is intended to provide an opportunity to compare and contrast targets, areas of strength, areas of growth and other metrics.

The source of metrics and targets is the 2017-2020 SMAs, however many of the SMAs do not lend themselves to comparison. Some targets are given as a range, where possible the mid-point was used. Occasionally targets are relative to peers, or to a baseline, or based upon information not publically disclosed for all institutions (such as research publication statistics). Where appropriate available information from the 2017 CAUBO reports or 2017 CUDO data or institutional reports was used to supplement information (both often use CSRDE data).

Interesting Items to Review

The areas of strength (5) and areas of expansion (6) are interesting because you can see which universities have selected the same areas and where they have ranked them. For example, four universities have Education identified as an area of expansion, the most of any of the areas, however, they all ranked it fourth or below.

The financial status provides some interesting comparisons. The research measures and financial status measures are perhaps the most quantitatively competitive comparisons, however, the financial measures were reported with some diversity and paper publications and citation targets are not available for all universities and as such, are not included in the dashboard.

The Tri-Agency research funding (page 8) is a reminder that these are targets and not actual results, it is interesting that collectively these targets represent 104.63% share of the Ontario total for Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and 103.72% of the Ontario total for Tri-Council funding. Collectively meeting these targets would be an apparent impossibility, except that not all targets were set as a single percentage figure, some as dollars, some as a percentage, all as targets.

The comparison of 2017 Weighted Grant Unit Corridors to the already reported 2017 CUDO enrollment numbers tells an interesting story about the grant value of types of students. The same chart tops the page.

The final page has all of the institutional-metrics, including how frequently they were used and by which university. You will have to consult the SMAs themselves for the actual targets, or my raw data.

Data

Here’s a copy of the spreadsheet I used to record all this information and build this dashboard.

• Metrics-and-targets.xlxs – Last update December 10, 2019.

List of Strategic Mandate Agreements 2017-2020

List of Strategic Mandate Agreements 2017-2020

All 21 Ontario University Strategic Mandate Agreements, their web-version on the MTCU website, their signed version on the university's website and the university's Institutional analysis website.

More information about these documents can be found in the Ontario Universities’ 2017-2020 Strategic Mandate Agreements with MTCU post.