The survey allows only one “entry” per institution, so you should select someone from your institution to be primarily responsible for entering the data, though you may have several individuals involved in gathering and reviewing the data before entering it.  Multiple people from your institution can view your institution’s data – and other institution’s data – after the data has been submitted.

Please join this discussion in the Alumni Relations CASE Community to learn and share tips from other members.  You must be a member of CASE to access this discussion in the forum.

This year, CASE continued to engage with a global task force of volunteers, who prioritized revisions to increase transparency in understanding data captured and would enable a wider group of institutions to take part, even if capturing alumni engagement is relatively nascent.  Specific enhancements for this data collection cycle include:

• Creation of a Minimal Version of the survey
• Addition of confidence level question
• Impact of virtual engagement through events
• Refinement of Communication Mode, including the incorporating click-through rates into engagement activities
• A new section on operations and technology resources

Reference this year's Guidance Document for details about these revisions.

As we embark on the second year of this project, we are incorporating some key lessons from the inaugural year, with the goal of increased transparency and of yielding apples-to-apples comparisons:

• Confidence Levels - Unlike giving metrics, it's likely impossible to count every individual who engages with your institution through communication, volunteer, and/or experiential activities.  Confidence levels are an indication of how confident you are that the counts you provided are a comprehensive representation of alumni activities, and will provide transparency and context to your counts by mode.
• Required Fields - We now have a better understanding of which fields are integral to benchmarking alumni engagement.  By requiring certain data points, the results will produce richer comparison data, both in your own analysis and in CASE's GPS Reports, Made-to-Order GPS Reports, and Facilitated Cohorts.
• Error Messages  - As you input the data, an error message will pop up to indicate if an answer is more or less than expected for that field.  If you are confused by an error message, email [email protected] for assistance.  

These questions can help you determine which version is best for your institution right now.  For detailed definitions, reference the Guidance Document.

Can you separate out alumni categories?  Examples are secondary diploma, associates degreed, undergraduate degreed, post graduate degreed, certificate-holders, non-degreed, and other.  If you answered YES, then continue to the next question.  If you answered NO, then email [email protected] to request the minimal version of the survey.

Do you capture activities defined as Communication?  See the Guidance Document for a full list of included Communication engagement activities.  If you answered YES, then continue to the next question.  If you answered NO, then email [email protected] to request the minimal version of the survey.

Can you separate out each mode of engagement by alumni category?  For example, can you capture the number of certificate-holders who engaged in volunteer activities?  If you answered YES to this and to all three questions, then you have sufficient data to complete the full version of the survey.  If you answered NO, then email [email protected] to request the minimal version of the survey.

Survey length will vary based upon the type of institution you are and how much data you have available.  This year's survey has two versions - the Full Version and the Minimal Version.  Please complete the Minimal Version only if you are not able to provide inputs both for alumni counts and complete the modes of engagement for each category of alumni (see the question above for a decision tree).  To schedule an appointment for an overview of the survey or to discuss which survey version would best suit your institution, contact us at [email protected].   We suggest reviewing the Guidance Documentation to help you understand how much data you might need to gather.

The survey is open for data collection from early September through December 31st annually. Institutions in Australia and New Zealand have through February 25th to accommodate their fiscal year schedule.

CASE anticipates releasing the results annually in Data Miner in the spring following the survey close date. The creation of GPS reports for each participating member institution follows the data release.