Higher Education in the Digital Age
Science & Technology Policy and Higher Education
Policy Issues in California Higher Education
Student Experience in the Research University (SERU)
Project and Consortium
Photographs © 2003 by Alan Nyiri; courtesy of the Atkinson Photographic Archive
The SERU Project
The SERU Project is a collaboration between academic scholars and institutional researchers devoted to creating new data sources and policy relevant analysis to help broaden our understanding of the undergraduate experience and to promote a culture of institutional self-improvement.
Research universities, public and private, face significant challenges related to changing student demographics, affordability, declines in public funding relative to costs, adoption of instructional technologies, generally higher student to faculty ratios than other postsecondary institution types, increased competition regarding the quality of our academic degree programs, growing calls for accountability and the measuring of learning outcomes, and a greater understanding of the role of research engagement and other strengths of research universities.
| One of the primary findings of the SERU Project’s earlier research is that there are many student experiences within a campus, and therefore any useful analysis requires a large and longitudinal data set to allow for disaggregating student responses. Campus-wide gauges of student satisfaction, for example, are largely meaningless The Survey’s state-of-the-art online census design provides for a relatively low-cost means for reaching all students and important subgroups, creating a detailed data set with large benefits for participating campuses. -- SERU Research Team |
Based at the Center for Studies in Higher Education, and led by a faculty and IR Research Team, the SERU Project has produced an innovative SERU Survey - a census and online survey administered regularly since 2004 to some 180,000 students at all nine of the University of California’s undergraduate campuses. The SERU Survey (known in the UC system as the UC Undergraduate Experience Survey or UCUES) has emerged as a major tool for:
- UNDERSTANDING WHO OUR STUDENTS ARE: Creating a much fuller understanding of our undergraduate population – their familial, academic, cultural, and ethnic background and self-identity.
- DISAGGREGATING THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE: More fully exploring how undergraduates’ experience in terms of their behaviors, expectations, and satisfaction levels is affected by the academic and administrative practices of the research university and, conversely, how their behaviors and interests influence the academic milieu.
- TRANSLATING WHAT WE KNOW INTO POLICY: Analyzing and using data that can help identify strengths and weaknesses of undergraduate programs that can be integrated into policymaking and that help guide policy-relevant research.
More information of the SERU Project
The SERU Consortium
The SERU Project is inviting AAU research universities to join a Consortium that will include administration of a census and online SERU Survey of undergraduate students – a version of a survey currently administered at all nine undergraduate campuses of the University of California system.
The intent and design of the SERU Consortium is to form a critical mass of major research universities that are interested in both generating new institutional and comparative data and using it systematically as a tool for policy-relevant research and institutional self-improvement.
The SERU research team and leaders of this new Consortium feel strongly that major research universities need to promote internal accountability mechanisms and analysis and seek on their own terms the improvement of one of their primary responsibilities: the undergraduate experience and educational process.
As we build a longitudinal database, the potential grows for addressing a wide range of questions about the value-added of a UC education and the differential educational experiences of various sub-populations within and across the nine UC undergraduate campuses. |
The SERU research team and leaders of the new Consortium feel strongly that major research universities need to promote better information to understand and improve the undergraduate experience and educational process. Three major uses of the SERU Consortium design and survey products include the following:
- ACADEMIC PROGRAM REVIEW – The SERU Survey provides a census and longitudinal data set, combined with web-based tools offered to Consortium members, creating a robust source for a broad range of analysis, including comparisons with equivalent academic programs at other Consortium campuses under agreed AAU data exchange protocols.
- CAMPUS AND PROGRAM ACCREDITATION – SERU Consortium members will have the ability to integrate SERU survey data, along with other campus data sets, to create a campus-wide picture of a campus’ strengths in undergraduate education, including variables related directly to the mission of research universities, such as the role of undergraduate research experience.
- REPORTS AND ANALYSIS — Data and analysis for internal and external policy development and reports to campus academic and administrative leaders, governing boards, lawmakers, and outside constituents. The SERU Survey is also part of the new “Voluntary System of Accountability” (VSA) promoted by NASLGUC/AASCU.
More Information on the SERU Consortium and Invitation to AAU Institutions
| Related Links |
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Assessing the Undergraduate Experience in the Postmodern University (SERU/UCUES Research Symposium: April 25, 2007) UCwide Symposium: Civic and Academic Engagement in the Multiversity |
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Last modified: 2 June 2009 | e-mail