This content was written prior to the renaming of Watermark products in July 2021, and refers to an old product name. To learn more about the new names for Watermark products, read our press release here.
NEW YORK — January 7, 2019 – Watermark, the largest provider of educational intelligence solutions for higher ed worldwide, recently expanded its partnership with the HLC-accredited University of Denver (DU) located in Denver, CO in order to integrate the use of data across the core institutional processes, including course evaluation and faculty activity reporting processes.
With a focus on improving the quality of its programs, effectiveness of curriculum at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, faculty review processes, as well as accreditation reporting, DU chose to implement Watermark’s enterprise course evaluation and institutional survey solution. With Watermark, DU is streamlining the process of capturing student feedback across the institution at different points in time by centralizing and automating information-rich reporting that ensures both faculty and administrators have the actionable data needed to monitor quality and make real-time decisions that improve teaching and learning.
Specifically, in leveraging Watermark’s enterprise course evaluation solution, the University is able to:
In choosing Watermark, the University sought tools that enabled workflows and processes that supported more accurate and expanded data collection capabilities, including that of faculty activity data. With the goal of facilitating an integrated faculty data collection and reporting process at DU, the University demonstrates a commitment to supporting faculty growth through a process that allows for the documenting, collecting, and storing of faculty activities, including research and publications, professional development, internal and external service, course load, and student course evaluations.
In leveraging Watermark solutions for this process since 2011, faculty can store artifacts of their work, such as full-text files of publications, presentations, grant award letters, and audio and video recordings of performances, and then generate Curriculum Vitae from the data entered.
Plus, when faculty upload this vita data into Watermark, DU can produce activity reports for the purposes of annual departmental and University-wide review and celebrations of faculty accomplishments. Data is easily accessed for promotion and tenure discussions, accreditation requirements, and reports to internal or external constituents.
With Watermark solutions, DU has leveraged an integration between its course evaluation and faculty activity data sets, extending the life cycle of its data, which will prove valuable in gaining a more holistic picture of course and program effectiveness, faculty workload, approaches to teaching and learning, and service across the institution for purposes of evaluation and continuous quality improvement.
“While we had implemented both Digital Measures and EvaluationKIT at DU before they became part of Watermark, we are very excited about the expanded capacity and opportunities presented by both Digital Measures and EvaluationKIT joining Watermark. This new collaboration will help us to centralize and integrate our course evaluation, faculty activity reporting, accreditation tracking, and data collection processes. Most importantly, Watermark will provide us with increased capability to use our data across processes so that we can be making informed decisions that will improve both student and institutional outcomes,” said Linda Kosten, Senior Associate Provost, Academic Administration, for the University of Denver.
“We’re honored to have the opportunity to grow our partnership with the University of Denver. As the University administers its first set of large-scale evaluations, we look forward to being able to provide the institution with an increased level of student feedback and better insight into course effectiveness, in order to streamline processes for making curricular improvements,” said Kevin Hoffman, President of EvaluationKIT by Watermark.
“While the University has used Digital Measures by Watermark for faculty activity reporting for many years, it’s exciting to integrate their use of that with course evaluation and institutional surveys. Extending the life cycle of its data marks an important step in helping the University centralize many of its core institutional processes and increase efficiency. At Watermark, we look to ease these institutional data collection processes so that faculty and administrators can focus more on using their data to make meaningful improvements across all levels of the institution,” said Matt Bartel, President of Digital Measures by Watermark.
Founded in 1864 as the Colorado Seminary, the University of Denver is oldest independent university in the Rocky Mountain region and delivers a rigorous and rewarding experience for students through a holistic approach to education that transforms students into leaders. A doctoral university with high research activity, DU enrolls nearly 5,800 undergraduate and 5,800 graduate students each year. In the classroom, students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels work closely with faculty to shape academic pathways that lead to intellectual fulfillment and career achievement.
With Watermark as their partner, DU is poised to streamline its management of core institutional improvement processes in order to continue using its data to make meaningful improvements at all levels.
About Watermark
Watermark’s mission is to put better data into the hands of administrators, faculty, and students everywhere in order to empower them to connect information and gain insights into learning which will drive meaningful improvements. Through its innovative educational intelligence platform, Watermark supports institutions in developing an intentional approach to learning and development based on data they can trust.
Contact:
Victoria Guzzo
Corporate Communications
vguzzo@watermarkinsights.com