Riverside Community College District Partners with Watermark to Better Connect Student Feedback Data to Institutional Improvement Efforts

NEW YORK— February 3, 2020 –Watermark, the largest provider of educational intelligence solutions for higher ed worldwide, is pleased to welcome one of its newest partners, California’s Riverside Community College District, which includes Moreno Valley College, Norco College, and Riverside City College — all of which are accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). The district has selected Watermark’s enterprise course evaluation and institutional survey solution solution for use across all courses at its Colleges.

With its district-wide adoption, the Colleges will be shifting from a paper-based course evaluation process to online in order to more effectively surface valuable insights into the student experience. With a focus on improving the quality of its programs, monitoring the effectiveness of curriculum, as well as streamlining accreditation reporting, the Colleges will use Watermark to better capture student feedback across all courses at different points in time.

By centralizing and automating information-rich reporting, both faculty and administrators will have the actionable data needed to monitor quality and make real-time decisions that improve teaching and learning. Specifically, the institutions will be able to:

1. Administer course evaluations across all academic units in accordance with the specific dates at multiple time points throughout the year.
2. Build transparency by providing reports of course evaluation data in multiple formats for various stakeholders.
3. Access raw data as well as expand its datasets through complete integrations with other campus systems, including its Enterprise Resource Program (ERP) and Learning Management System (LMS), Canvas.

In addition, the district will experience key benefits, including:

• Improvement of Evaluative Data: Moving to Watermark automates data collection and calculation, improving data quality and integrity with timely access for faculty and departments. Campus and district-wide data will also improve through the use of standardized questions allowing for meaningful comparisons of data.
• Consolidation of Processes and Better Integration: In addition to consolidating a variety of methods for aggregating and analyzing evaluative data, Watermark integrates with existing RCCD systems, which will allow the Colleges to better leverage its ongoing technological investments in common services. The district will be able to compare results over time and have the kind of information that will help inform planning, improve curriculum, and drive quality at all levels.

As the only course evaluation and survey solution designed for education and with proven capabilities to improve student response rates, EvaluationKIT by Watermark supports deep, turnkey integrations with all leading LMSs, including Canvas, allowing key institutional data to be imported to automate and streamline the survey process while supporting increased communication with students.

“We’re looking to deploy course evaluations seamlessly to students across the entire district and all courses. With Watermark, we’ll be able to simplify our Colleges’ processes for capturing student feedback and better quality data, so that our institutions can compare results from an instructor or course against specific grouped data, access longitudinal reporting to view results over time, and generate operational reporting to identify areas for improvement. As a district, we’ll be able to compare over time and have the kind of information that will help inform planning, improve curriculum, and drive quality at all levels,” said Mr. Chris Blackmore, Associate Vice Chancellor at Riverside Community College District.

“We’re honored to have the opportunity to serve Riverside Community College District and support the district-wide efforts to better connect student feedback data to quality improvement efforts. We look forward to providing its institutions with an increased level of student feedback and better insight into course effectiveness, so they can continue making curricular improvements,” said Kevin Michielsen, CEO of Watermark.

“At Watermark, our goal is to ease these institutional data collection processes so that faculty and administrators can focus more on using their data to make meaningful improvements to teaching and learning,” noted Michielsen.

Opening in September 1916, RCCD serves more than 40,000 students and provides its colleges with leadership in the areas of advocacy, resource stewardship, and planning. RCCD offers more than 100 comprehensive programs to aid students seeking transfer to a four-year college or university, a two-year degree, a professional certificate, occupational training, or simply to update their work skills.

Contact:
Victoria Guzzo
Corporate Communications
vguzzo@watermarkinsights.com