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Ensuring Excellence in Programming

Northeast has many practices in place to ensure that students are receiving a quality education that is relevant to today’s workforce and provides them with the skillsets to succeed.

Institutional Outcomes

Members of society need to communicate effectively, reason, and demonstrate relational perspective and stewardship as responsible citizens. Northeast Community College has established a set of Institutional Outcomes to enhance these attributes.

Institutional Outcomes can be achieved through general education courses, degree-specific courses and during co-curricular activities. The following identify the Institutional Outcomes and learning objectives that are integrated into a variety of courses and activities at Northeast.

  • Stewardship: Students will demonstrate stewardship.
  • Communication: Students will communicate effectively.
  • Reasoning: Students will analyze information.
  • Relational Perspective: Students will discuss their connection in the world.

General Education requirements for degrees, diplomas, and certificates can be found in the College Catalog.

Academic Assessment, Co-curricular Assessment, and Program Review

Through annual assessment of academic courses and programs/activities, instructors can evaluate student learning outcomes and make improvements to coursework. Comprehensive program review is conducted on a seven-year cycle as prescribed by the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education (CCPE) and on a more frequent internal cycle (annual data review and analysis) to ensure continuous improvement of programming.

Student Assessment of Instruction

Student Assessment of Instruction is provided for each course, each term to assure that quality of instruction is maintained. Through the Learning Management System, students can provide feedback on all courses they are registered for. The results are utilized by instructors to make improvements to courses.

Nationally Normed Surveys

Northeast participates in the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI) and Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) on a rotational basis. These nationally normed surveys provide Northeast with valuable feedback on how to improve the student experience in comparison to community and technical colleges. The SSI and CCSSE support each other and assist Northeast in exploring student perceptions from satisfaction and engagement perspectives.

Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI)

The SSI provides the College with a powerful tool to improve the quality of student life and learning. It measures student satisfaction and priorities, showing you how satisfied students are as well as what issues are important to them. The SSI captures a variety of experiences both inside and outside of the classroom, including:

  • Instructional effectiveness
  • Academic advising
  • Registration effectiveness
  • Campus climate
  • Safety and security
  • Recruitment and financial aid
  • Campus life

Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)

The CCSSE assists Northeast in focusing on good educational practice and identifying areas in which the College can improve its programs and services for students.

Administered during the spring to mostly returning students, CCSSE asks about institutional practices and student behaviors that are highly correlated with student learning and retention. The survey provides information on student engagement – a key indicator of learning.

Regular and Substantive Interaction

The federal U.S. Department of Education requires educational institutions to have “regular and substantive interaction between students and instructors” within distance education courses. Regular and Substantive Interaction, or RSI, distinguishes distance education from correspondence courses.

Distance education uses technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor or instructors and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor or instructors, either synchronously or asynchronously.

How are distance education courses different from correspondence courses?

According to the Department of Education, five critical factors differentiate distance education from correspondence courses—

  1. The institution’s online instruction is delivered through an appropriate form of media;
  2. The instructors with whom students regularly and substantively interact meet the requirements of the institution’s accrediting agency for instruction in the subject matter;
  3. Instructors engage in at least two forms of substantive interaction meeting the regulatory requirements for the course or competency;
  4. The institution has established scheduled and predictable opportunities for substantive interaction between students and instructors and create expectations for instructors to monitor each student’s engagement and substantively engage with students on the basis of that monitoring; and
  5. Instructors are responsive to students’ requests for instructional support.

An institution ensures regular interaction between a student and an instructor or instructors by, prior to the student’s completion of a course or competency—

  1. Providing the opportunity for substantive interactions with the student on a predictable and regular basis commensurate with the length of time and the amount of content in the course or competency; and
  2. Monitoring the student’s academic engagement and success and ensuring that an instructor is responsible for promptly and proactively engaging in substantive interaction with the student when needed on the basis of such monitoring, or upon request by the student.

Regular and Substantive Interaction compliance is reviewed annually in all distance education courses per Distance Education Course Development and Instruction Procedures.