Planning and Assessment

Institutional Planning

Annual Plans

Annual plans provide departments and programs the opportunity to develop objectives for improving their areas.   Annual plans operate on a calendar year cycle and are organized by planning units. They include a purpose statement, a set of objectives, budgetary considerations, measurement methods, and actions/outcomes.    

Professional Development Plans/Professional Activities Summaries

Professional Development Plans (PDP) and Professional Activities Summaries (PAS) enable employees to thoughtfully plan out activities that will help them grow as JCC employee.  The PDP contains a list of objectives a full-time employee and that employee’s supervisor set as goals for the employee to complete during the upcoming year.  These goals typically focus on skill and knowledge development and overall growth within one’s current role at the college.  A Professional Activities Summary (PAS) is a list of items such as workshops, conferences, webinars, self-directed study, community service, and other training an employee completes during the year.  The employee can then evaluate each professional development objective to determine if it was completely met, partially met, or not met.

Strategic Planning

Every five years, the President approves the strategic planning process in preparation for strategic planning. To ensure that planning is broad-based, the participants in strategic planning include representatives from trustees, administration, faculty, staff and students; community input is included through surveys, trustee participation and feedback directed through participants in the process. The strategic planning process begins with the creation of a draft vision statement by the college’s administrative council and the selection of individuals to serve on the strategic planning committee. The strategic planning committee provides input on the vision statement, reviews the current mission statement, conducts a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis, conducts a gap analysis, and develops strategic goals. The department of research and institutional effectiveness facilitates the process, provides data to assist with the SWOT and gap analyses, and drafts strategic goals and success measures. All components of the strategic plan are approved by the college’s administrative council and board of trustees. During the first year of the plan, the college and its board of trustees is presented with baseline data for the determined key performance indicators (KPIs). Each year of the strategic plan, the KPI table is updated with new data and presented to appropriate stakeholders.

Strategic Enrollment Management Plan

Research and Institutional Effectiveness oversees the strategic enrollment management plan and meetings of both the Strategic Enrollment Management Committee and sub-committee.  These committees consist of stakeholders from all divisions to oversee the progress of the strategic enrollment management plan.  The strategic enrollment management plan is designed to assist the College in improving the specific areas of recruitment, retention, and completion.  

Program Development

Research and Institutional Effectiveness facilitates program development in accordance with North Carolina Community College System policies and State Board of Community College Code by assisting with research, application preparation, application submission, accreditation substantive change, and system-level programmatic reporting, all in collaboration with institutional stakeholders.

Institutional Assessment

Service Outcomes Assessment

The primary purpose of the service outcomes assessment process is to provide stakeholders a tool by which to continuously review data related to what our customers experience, receive, or know resulting from a given service.  This process is completed by non-academic service areas of the college and allows the College to continue to set high standards for quality customer service. At JCC, the service outcomes assessment process is a streamlined process designed to generate data to guide planning units in purposeful, intentional annual planning.

Student Learning Outcomes Assessment & Academic Program Review

Regardless of location or method of delivery, all of the College's credit-bearing programs measure student success using multiple direct and indirect measures.  Keys in the measurement of success are the student learning outcomes (SLO) assessment plan (which includes assessment of general education outcomes), the academic program review, and the annual plan for each of the academic planning units, as well as program specific accreditation.  Programs offered at off-campus instructional locations (including dual enrollment instruction at the high schools) follow the same evaluation and assessment requirements as the rest of the college's instructional programs. The primary purpose of an academic program review is to systematically improve educational instruction, programming, and student learning. Reviewing academic programs periodically ensures program relevancy and continual quality improvement. The Assessment Plan consists of program student learning outcomes, methods to assess those outcomes, the results of the assessment, and targeted strategies for improvement based on those results.

Planning and Assessment Resources

Faculty and staff resources, including the Institutional Effectiveness Plan, training tools, and more can be found on SharePoint.