APPLICATION FOR EXEMPTION FOR HUMAN SUBJECTS RESEARCH

HERI Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP)

Freshman Survey

As an incoming Mines student, you are invited to complete the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) freshman survey. Mines will use your survey results to determine how we can achieve the strategic planning goals of improving the overall student experience, increasing retention and graduation rates, and supporting student satisfaction.This online survey asks questions about the following topics:

  • Established behaviors in high school
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  • Interactions with peers and faculty

  • Academic preparedness
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  • Student values and goals

  • Admissions decisions
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  • Student demographic characteristics

  • Expectations of college
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  • Concerns about financing college

This survey is administered by the HigherEducation Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA and will be coordinated by the Colorado School of Mines Assessment Director. This survey will take you approximately 25 minutes to complete. You may leave any survey questions blank if you are uncomfortable with any of the questions. There are no negative consequences to you for leaving questions blank.

The survey asks you for permission to retain your email address, name, student ID number, and date of birth for potential follow-up surveys, but you do not have to provide permission to share this information. There are no negative consequences to you if you choose not to share this information. This identifying information is stored at HERI in a separate file from the survey responses.

When the data are returned to HERI,they are returned in two separate files. The first file contains the names and addresses of respondents who have given their permission to have their names and email addresses retained. The second file contains the survey responses. The data file that Mines receive from HERI will not contain names or email addresses. If arespondent gives permission to HERI to retain his/her name and email address for follow-up surveys, that informationis retained in a file separate from survey responses at HERI. This file is not returned to Mines. In order to receive the survey results, the assessment director will certify compliance with HERI’s confidentiality agreement. This agreement states that the survey results will be used solely for statistical analysis and reporting of aggregate information and not for the investigation of specific individuals. While it might be possible to identify an individual based on answers to the CIRP Freshman Survey, the confidentiality agreement protects against this possibility.

Only the Assessment Director will have access to the raw data resulting from students’ survey responses. The Director’s computer is password protected and compliant with all of the Mines’ policies regarding computing security as described at Resultsof the surveywill only be used to better understandthestudentexperience, with the ultimate goals of improving programs and services and supporting students’ success.

Survey results will be linked to students’ CWIDs (which is the Mines’ identification number) so that Mines can analyze students’ feedback, retention patterns, and academic success indicators in order to determine how we can achieve the strategic planning goals of improving the overall student experience, increasing retention and graduation rates, and supporting student satisfaction.

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact Kay Schneider, Director of Assessment at the Colorado School of Mines at .

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