AU’s new “We KNOW Success” website shows off results of degrees from the school in an interactive format, showing the employment levels and post-grad plans of AU graduates.
The site, originally launched in November, is one of the first from a college to present general data on an interface that is built for parents and prospective students. Few other colleges have similar sites, according to Terry Flannery, vice president for AU Communications.
“There is a greater demand for public accountability for individual degrees,” Flannery said.
“We KNOW Success” is overseen by Flannery in University Communications and by Gihan Fernando, the executive director of the Career Center.
Within three weeks of its launch, Flannery said the site had 5,500 unique visitors and 500 shares on social media.
Many higher education and designer-focused professionals recognize “We KNOW Success” as a unique platform, Flannery said. The State Department Fulbright Program and Ohio State University representatives have contacted AU Communications about data collection and building a similar site. No other universities in the D.C. area share data on their programs’ graduates. Flannery lists St. Olaf’s College, Wake Forest University and University of Texas as the few schools that aggregated student data about employment by the time “We KNOW Success” was launched.
The data is collected from graduates in 2011, 2012 and 2013, using the Office of Research and Assessment, the AU Career Center and the Kogod Center for Career and Development, according to the website.
More than two thirds of 2011-2013 graduates responded to the requests for info from AU.
“It’s really unusual for a university of our size to have [these] completion rates for any kind of survey, but especially this,” Flannery said.
According to this data, 88 percent of recent bachelor’s and 91 percent of recent master’s graduates are employed and/or continuing their education.
The Kogod School of Business has the highest employment and graduate school enrollment rate of recent undergrad students among AU’s undergraduate schools, according to the site.
Users can pick one or all of AU’s schools, choose all programs or view undergraduate and graduate data separately and select a specific major.
Data for doctorate programs at AU is incomplete and could not be included in the graduation census at this point.
The infographic census enables users to search by major and by school to see employment rates and average annual salaries.
Data from graduates from 2011 will be removed when 2014 grad data is added. The change is estimated to occur in early March, according to Flannery.
“The value in it is seeing what happens to the most recent graduates,” she said.
American University's "We Know Success" website gets an A++ in my book. Impressive commitment by the university. http://t.co/DM8R083sJo
— Nancy Prater (@nmprater) November 24, 2014
Great .edu site demonstrating the value of the education offered, outcomes, and results: http://t.co/RcAcN55XuK
— Doug Gapinski (@DougGapinski) November 11, 2014
Outcomes for recent #AmericanU grads: http://t.co/aaZ2OujNrl. Very smart & well done, @higheredwonk! #highered #AMAHigherEd
— Michael Stoner (@mStonerblog) November 11, 2014
Best outcomes reporting I've seen yet. And it's fun! Check out what @higheredwonk and team have done @AmericanU http://t.co/B3Mj6Z2GY3
— Charlie Melichar (@melicharlie) November 10, 2014
