Archived Changes
Changes to IPEDS Data Collections, 2012-13
NEW - This document was revised on 6/28/12, to include information about the newly launched IPEDS HR/SOC website (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/Section/resources_soc); the elimination of the “Graduate Assistants – Other” category and the addition of more detailed graduate assistant categories (to agree with the 2012-13 IPEDS HR survey that was posted to the IPEDS website last year); and the elimination of “Primarily” in the occupational titles (to agree with the 2012-13 IPEDS HR survey that was posted to the IPEDS website last year).
This document was revised on 2/15/12, to reflect OMB approval of the new occupational categories for HR reporting.
- Changes to the IPEDS data collection that have been approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for implementation in 2012-13. The preview year for these approved changes is 2011-12, and survey screens and instructions are available through the Survey Materials link on the Data Provider Center page (https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/IPEDS/VisIndex.aspx)
- Changes to the occupational categories used on the Human Resources (HR) survey component that have been approved by OMB for implementation in 2012-13.
Institutions should prepare to report in 2012-13 using the new categories. Each job at the institution will need to be categorized according to the 2010 SOC in order to report HR data in 2012-13. An HR/SOC Resources website is now available at: http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/Section/resources_soc. More information on the 2010 SOC can also be found at: www.bls.gov/soc/.
The changes to the data collection are suggestions from the IPEDS Technical Review Panel (TRP). Meetings of the IPEDS TRP are convened by RTI International, the contractor for the IPEDS web-based data collection system; subject areas for the meetings are determined by legislation, emerging areas of concern in postsecondary education, and an ongoing goal of decreasing reporting burden while retaining the federal data necessary for use by policy makers and education analysts. Detailed summaries of each meeting are posted ( https://edsurveys.rti.org/IPEDS_TRP/Default.aspx) and comments on panel suggestions are solicited. Three meetings of the TRP resulted in changes for 2012-13.
The new occupational categories come from a new requirement to align IPEDS HR reporting with the 2010 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) codes.
| Origins of Changes to the 2012-13 IPEDS Data Collection | |||
| Origin | Summary | Survey Components Affected | |
| Distance Education TRP (Held in April 2008) | The IPEDS Technical Review Panel met to discuss evolving delivery modes for postsecondary education and increased availability of “distance education” courses and programs. Topics ranged from the definition of distance education to the challenges that institutions would face in providing distance education data. The panel discussed how the reporting of distance education data might be incorporated into the existing IPEDS reporting structure in order to collect data that would help NCES better describe postsecondary education in the nation, part of NCES’ mission; allow institutions to compare their distance education activities to those of their peers; and provide valuable consumer information on College Navigator to students and parents. | Institutional Characteristics Completions Fall Enrollment | |
| Completions TRP (Held in December 2009) | A common question NCES receives from policymakers asks for the number of postsecondary graduates in a given year who would likely be entering the workforce. Because IPEDS currently collects data on the number of completions (certificates and degrees awarded) rather than completers (graduates), it cannot accurately answer this question. Graduates may receive, for example, two degrees in a given year or a degree and certificate, and then they would be reported twice, over counting the number of persons completing programs and feasibly entering the workforce. The TRP met to discuss whether and how data on completers could be collected through the IPEDS Completions survey. | Completions | |
| Human Resources TRP (Held in June 2010) | The TRP examined the reporting burden for degree-granting institutions completing the Human Resources component and discussed strategies for simplifying the collection forms and eliminating potentially duplicative or unnecessary data in order to reduce institutional burden and improve the usefulness and quality of the data being reported. | Human Resources | |
| 2010 SOC | A new version of the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) was released in 2010. The SOC is used by federal statistical agencies to classify workers and jobs into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, analyzing, or disseminating data. IPEDS Human Resources reporting is required to align with the 2010 SOC. This alignment introduces new occupational categories that will replace the primary functions/ occupational activities currently used for HR reporting. | Human Resources | |
| Changes to IPEDS Data Collection 2012-13 | |||
| Change | Source | ||
| Institutional Characteristics (All institutions) 2012-13 | |||
| Add an item to collect whether distance education opportunities are offered and at what student level (undergraduate, graduate). The current IC question C2 will be modified to exclude the distance education reporting option, and a new question will be added. | Distance Ed TRP | ||
| Completions (All institutions) 2012-13 | |||
| Add an item to collect the total number of students who earned degrees or certificates, by race/ethnicity and gender. | Completions TRP | ||
Add items to collect the numbers of students who earned degrees or certificates, separately by (1) gender; (2) race/ethnicity, and (3) age*, for the following 6 award categories (collapsed from the 11 IPEDS categories):
|
Completions TRP | ||
| Add an item so that institutions can indicate, by CIP code and award level, if the program is available to be completed completely through distance education. | Distance Ed TRP | ||
| 12-month Enrollment (4-yr institutions) 2012-13 | |||
| Eliminate collection of doctor’s-professional practice instructional activity, now included with graduate activity. | NCES initiated | ||
| Add an item collect full-time equivalent enrollment for doctor’s-professional practice students. These 2 changes will address the problem created in the calculation of FTE enrollment caused by the recent introduction of new postbaccalaureate degree classifications. | NCES initiated | ||
| Fall Enrollment (all institutions) 2012-13 | |||
| Add a new Part to the survey to collect data on the number of students enrolled in any distance education and the number of students enrolled exclusively in distance education. Data will be broken out by student level (undergraduate, graduate) and student location (in same state as institution, in U.S. but not in same state, outside U.S.). | Distance Ed TRP | ||
| HUMAN RESOURCES 2012-13 | |||
The changes for the Human Resources survey component fall into two categories:
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| Human Resources (all institutions) 2012-13 | |||
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Adopt new occupational categories to replace the current primary function/occupational activity categories. The alignment with the 2010 Standard Occupational Categories (SOC) requires the adoption of new occupational categories for reporting on the HR survey component. However, the currently used categories Primarily Instruction, Instruction Combined with Research and/or Public Service, Primarily Research, and Primarily Public Service will continue to be used, and will not change, except that “primarily” has been dropped from the category name. The professional/non-professional terminology will no longer be used. NCES has received approval from OMB to use the following categories:
|
2010 SOC | ||
| Human Resources (all degree-granting institutions) 2012-13 | |||
| Add a screening question to determine if an institution has graduate assistants. | HR TRP | ||
Revise the Primarily Instruction occupational category so that data in the EAP section (Part A) are reported for three subcategories:
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HR TRP | ||
Make the following revisions to the Salaries section (Part E):
Note: To assist data reporters in determining the number of hours covered, a worksheet will be provided in the data collection system that collects counts of staff on 9-month contracts, 10-month contracts, 11-month contracts, and 12-month contracts, by gender and academic rank. For each gender and academic rank category, the system would then calculate: (1) the total number of staff reported (i.e., the sum of the values entered for each contract length), and (2) the total number of months covered (i.e., the sum of the staff reported for each contract length multiplied by the number of months in the contract). |
HR TRP | ||
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Add an additional screen to the Salaries section (Part E), to be displayed immediately after the salary outlays screen for full-time instructional staff, to collect salary outlays for full-time non-instructional staff by occupational category. These totals will not be disaggregated by race/ethnicity or gender. Note: The alignment with the 2010 Standard Occupational Categories (SOC) requires the adoption of new occupational categories for reporting on the HR survey component. If approved, the new occupational categories for which salary outlays will be collected will be:
|
2010 SOC | ||
| Human Resources (degree-granting institutions with 15+ FT staff) 2012-13 | |||
To streamline data collection across component sections:
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HR TRP | ||
| Add a screening question to determine if the institution has a tenure system. | HR TRP | ||
Add the following non-tenure track contract faculty categories to the Fall Staff section (Part G):
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HR TRP | ||
1 In addition to the Graduate Assistants (GAs) – Teaching category, GAs are also reported separately by the following categories: Research; Management; Business and Financial Operations; Computer, Engineering, and Science; Community Service, Legal, Arts, and Media; Library and Non-postsecondary Teaching; and Healthcare Practitioners and Technical.
IPEDS HUMAN RESOURCES SURVEY COMPONENT AND THE 2010 STANDARD OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION
The IPEDS HR survey component uses the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system to assist institutions in classifying employees for IPEDS reporting purposes. The SOC is a system used by Federal statistical agencies to classify workers and jobs into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, analyzing, or disseminating data. In 2010, an updated version of the SOC system ( http://www.bls.gov/soc/) was released. Consequently, the IPEDS HR survey must be revised to incorporate the 2010 SOC information.
The current HR instructions map approximately 140 of the 821 SOC occupational categories to the following eleven primary functions/occupational activities in the IPEDS HR survey:
- Primarily instruction
- Instruction combined with research and public service
- Primarily research
- Primarily public service
- Graduate assistants
- Executive/administrative/managerial
- Other professional (support/service)
- Technical and paraprofessional
- Clerical and secretarial
- Skilled crafts
- Service/Maintenance
Although there were no major changes to the 2010 SOC, the primary functions/occupational activities in the IPEDS HR survey must be redefined to align with an approved aggregation scheme created from the 23 major groups in the 2010 SOC. (In April 2011, the SOC Policy Committee approved the aggregation scheme proposed for IPEDS HR reporting, shown in the table below.) Additionally, NCES must give guidance concerning reporting all SOC occupational categories, not just the subset that is more commonly found on campuses.
There will be a loss of trend data with the adoption of the new categories. Currently, the Other professional, Technical and paraprofessional, and Service/Maintenance categories span SOC major categories, splitting them by skill level, and assigning the more skilled occupations to the Other professional category, and the less skilled occupations to the Technical and paraprofessional and Service/Maintenance categories. This is no longer permitted. HR aggregations must now be based on the SOC major categories, which are discipline focused instead of being based on skill levels.
The IPEDS Occupational Categories that will be implemented in 2012-13 Human Resources reporting are shown below. The first column shows the occupational categories that will be reported in IPEDS starting in 2012-13, incorporating the 2010 SOC. The second column shows the SOC major and minor groups that make up the IPEDS categories.
| IPEDS Occupational Categories for Implementation in 2012-13 | |||
| IPEDS Category | SOC Major/Minor Group Elements and Detailed Occupations | ||
| Management Occupations | 11-0000 Management Occupations | ||
| Business and Financial Operations Occupations | 13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations | ||
| Computer, Engineering, and Science Occupations | 15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations 17-0000 Architecture and Engineering Occupations 19-0000 Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations |
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| Community Service, Legal, Arts, and Media Occupations | 21-0000 Community and Social Service Occupations 23-0000 Legal Occupations 27-0000 Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations |
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| Instruction | 25-1000 Postsecondary Teachers | ||
| Instruction combined with research and/or public service (I/R/PS) | 25-1000 Postsecondary Teachers | ||
| Research | 25-1000 Postsecondary Teachers | ||
| Public Service | 25-1000 Postsecondary Teachers | ||
| Graduate assistants - teaching 1 | 25-1191 Graduate teaching assistants | ||
| Archivists, Curators, and Museum Technicians | 25-4010 Archivists, Curators, and Museum Technicians | ||
| Librarians | 25-4020 Librarians | ||
| Library Technicians | 25-4030 Library Technicians | ||
| Non-postsecondary Teachers | 25-2000 Pre-school, Primary, Secondary, and Special Education School Teachers 25-3000 Other Teachers and Instructors 25-9000 Other Education, Training, and Library Occupations |
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| Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | 29-0000 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations | ||
| Service Occupations | 31-0000 Healthcare Support Occupations 33-0000 Protective Service Occupations 35-0000 Food Prep and Serving Related Occupations 37-0000 Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations 39-0000 Personal Care and Service Occupations |
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| Sales and Related Occupations | 41-0000 Sales and Related Occupations | ||
| Office and Administrative Support Occupations | 43-0000 Office and Administrative Support Occupations | ||
| Natural Resources, Construction, and Maintenance Occupations | 45-0000 Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 47-0000 Construction and Extraction Occupations 49-0000 Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations |
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| Production, Transportation, and Material Moving Occupations | 51-0000 Production Occupations 53-0000 Transportation and Material Moving Occupations |
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| Not applicable in IPEDS because IPEDS collects data on civilian staff only | 55-0000 Military Specific Occupations | ||
1 In addition to the Graduate Assistants (GAs) – Teaching category, GAs are also reported separately by the following categories: Research; Management; Business and Financial Operations; Computer, Engineering, and Science; Community Service, Legal, Arts, and Media; Library and Non-postsecondary Teaching; and Healthcare Practitioners and Technical.
