Frameworks + more for measuring equity outcomes

Notes from this morning's Advance HE webinar on 'Securing Student Outcomes - Data & Insights', hosted by Dr Kay Hack (who was up very late in the UK - thank you!) and featuring 4 fantastic speakers across equity in higher education here in Australia.

I like to share my notes, in case they’re helpful to you.

Carrots and sticks for equity outcomes

🥕 Nadine Zacharias, MD and founder of Equity by Design, kicked us off with the carrots and sticks for equity evaluation. She shared a great overview of the 'carrot' - Student Equity in Higher Education Evaluation Framework (SEHEEF) which is helping to focus on the outcomes of equity programs, not just activities, attendance and other common metrics. The 'stick' is the government Support For Students policy, and whilst it replaced the blunter 50% pass rate requirement and focusses on students at risk of non-completion, it seems it's rather a 'light-touch' stick, for now.

Building capability in student equity evaluation

💪 Elisa McGowan, Associate Director, Student Equity & Success at The University of Western Australia then shared experiences, achievements and ongoing challenges in building capability in student equity evaluation. We can't expect all experienced equity practitioners to also be highly skilled evaluation experts, so how do we build that over time? And what can we do to accelerate change when progress in widening access and student success among equity groups (at national level, at least) is still so slow?

Using dashboards for impact

📈 Sonal Singh, Executive Manager, Student Access and Equity at UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion took us into the detail of what measurement and evaluation can look like through the lens of the Social Impact Framework Dashboard, available to all members of staff at the University. She also shared what the impact of equity initiatives can be with an example from the U@Uni Academy, which supports students from Year 10 to make a pathway to university.

Privacy, data and AI governance

⚖️ Bret Stephenson, Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) Equity Fellow and Principal Advisor, Data and Ethics at La Trobe University wrapped things up with some great provocations on privacy, data and AI governance. Australia's Data Privacy Act is woefully outdated and the University Accord recommendations mean potentially gathering even more sensitive data on equity groups. Are we ready to be good stewards of student information in the digital age?

There were plenty of resources and ideas for anyone working in the equity space here, but also for anyone who regularly measures and evaluates 'student success'. If you're looking for frameworks, Advance HE have a huge suite of resources on student success which are absolutely worth getting to know.

Thanks everyone for your wisdom and insight. As you can see, I struggled to capture it at anything more than surface level, but I'll be returning to check all the suggestions!