Spring 2018 Reporting for SARA Institutions
Submitted by jshanika on Tue, 03/06/2018 - 11:33
The Spring 2018 NC-SARA Enrollment Data Reporting Guide and Spring 2018 Data Sharing Agreement are now available.
NC-SARA on January 17-18 convened a group of individuals to review 2017 enrollment reporting, consider any needed improvements for 2018 and help develop protocols for the coming reporting of out-of-state learning placements.
Those individuals are: Kris Biesinger, Senior Advisor, Southern Regional Education Board (SREB); Marianne Boeke, Senior Associate, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS); Blake Carpenter, Manager, Student Data Services, The University of Texas at Arlington; Tyson Heath, Manager of State Authorization, NC-SARA Coordinator, Western Governors University; John Lopez, Special Assistant to the President and Chief Administrative Officer, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE); Russ Poulin, Director, Policy & Analysis, WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET); Ken Sauer, Senior Associate Commissioner and Chief Academic Officer, Indiana Commission for Higher Education; and Terri Taylor Straut, Senior Research Analyst, WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET). Three NC-SARA staff participated in the meetings: Marshall A. Hill, Executive Director; Mary Larson, Associate Director for Student and Institution Support; and Jennifer Shanika, Assistant Director for Technical Operations.
The NC-SARA 2018 Enrollment Data Reporting period will run from May 21, 2018 - June 11, 2018. All SARA institutions are required to participate in enrollment reporting. A link to an institution-specific web form will be sent to all active institution contacts on May 21st. We encourage each SARA institution to decide which person will be responsible for reporting and submitting the institution's information.
Basic protocols for 2018 reporting of enrollments do not change from those of 2017. The 2018 Guide provides additional information on topics that have proven challenging for some institutions, such as dealing with military students.
The 2018 Guide provides information to SARA-participating institutions about how to submit institutional enrollment data to NC-SARA. Please read the entire Guide before submitting your data or emailing a question. The Spring 2018 NC-SARA Enrollment Data Reporting Guide is available HERE .
The Spring 2018 Data Sharing Agreement (available HERE) reviews the purpose, authority, parties and terms of the agreement between NC-SARA and institutions participating in SARA. Please read this document in its entirety. Institutional approval of this agreement will be incorporated into the submission of each institution’s 2018 enrollment report.
Out-of-State Learning Placements
Experiential learning activities (clinical rotations, student teaching, internships, etc.) are important parts of many instructional programs. Though they occur in many disciplines, they are particularly common in certain fields, such as health-related disciplines and education. They are often a required part of obtaining a degree and/or license to practice a particular profession.
For most institutions, the majority of clinical placements made through their academic programs are likely located in the same state as the institution, but many placements occur across state lines. In making such placements, institutions are required to comply with the relevant laws, rules and regulations of the state in which such placements are made. While compliance with such laws is made much easier for SARA institutions making (some) placements in SARA states, SARA doesn’t cover all such activities (see below). Rules and regulations on these matters may be those of a state education agency or may be issued by a professional licensure board located in the particular state. As recent studies indicate, there is enormous variety in the regulation of the estimated 1,300 or so professions that one state or another chooses to license.[1]
SARA institutions, under specified conditions, may place a limited number of students in experiential learning activities in other SARA states without securing prior authorization for those placements from those other states. Importantly, though, if such placements are part of a degree program intended to prepare students for professional licensure in a distant state, prior approval by the distant state’s professional licensure board that oversees practice of the discipline may be required; SARA participation does not include such approval. In addition, some states have licensing boards that regulate all activity in the discipline, regardless of whether or not that activity is intended to support the student’s securing of professional licensure. Finally, SARA policies require institutions to inform distant students whether completion of the institution’s program will enable a student to take licensure exams in their distant state. New rules[2] from the U.S. Department of Education, set to take effect July 1, 2018, are far more prescriptive about such disclosures.
To meet commitments made to the state regulator community during the development of SARA; to include SARA-covered, on-the-ground learning activities in the counting of students benefiting from SARA provisions; to help institutions deal with obligations related to professional licensure and their related notifications to students; and to support institutional preparation for compliance with coming federal regulations affecting institutions’ ability to participate in federal Title IV student assistance programs, as a pilot exercise, NC-SARA is asking SARA institutions in spring 2018 to report certain of their learning placements in every state, territory and district other than their own. Placements are to be disaggregated by state and by two-digit CIP code (Classification of Instructional Programs – used by the U.S. Department of Education since 1980). Such institutional reporting to NC-SARA is voluntary for SARA institutions in spring 2018. At its May 2018 meeting, the NC-SARA board will consider making such reporting mandatory for spring 2019.
The reporting guide for that data collection – Placement Reporting Guide: How to Report Out-of-State Learning Placements to NC-SARA, a 2018 Guide for SARA Institutions – is available HERE. As is the case for enrollment reporting, the spring 2018 reporting of out-of-state learning placements will begin on May 21, 2018 and conclude on June 11, 2018.
Marshall A. Hill
Executive Director
NC-SARA
[1] http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/us-licensing-system
[2] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/12/19/2016-29444/program-integrity-and-improvement