The Office of Planning & Accountability (OPA) provides university-wide planning and decision support for strategic and program planning, enrollment management, quality assurance, and continuous improvement. OPA is also responsible for KPU’s non-financial accountability and compliance reporting.
There are three teams within OPA:
Quality Assurance (QA): The Quality Assurance team provides administrative support to program reviews and administers student course feedback surveys. Support for program review includes providing guidance and support in the review planning process and throughout the review, and collecting both administrative and stakeholder survey data to inform the review. The QA team also provides support for the Quality Assurance Process Audit, a periodic external review process required by the Ministry to ensure that the public post-secondary institutions have effective quality assurance processes.
Institutional Analytics (IA): The Institutional Analytics team ensures that KPU has access to information to assist in making data-informed decisions. This includes interactive dashboards on a wide range of information including applicants, enrolments, grades, graduation and outcomes, as well as customized analyses and enrolment forecasting. The IA team is also responsible for student accountability reporting to the Ministry, as well as various data submissions to BC Stats, Statistics Canada, and other external agencies.
Institutional Research (IR): The Institutional Research team collects survey information from students and employees on behalf of other departments for planning, quality improvement, and accountability purposes, other than those conducted as part of program reviews. The IR team also assesses the feasibility of proposed programs in terms of labour market need, competitive environment, and student demand, and conducts environmental scans as required. The IR team also oversees development of the annual Accountability Plan and Report, KPU’s report to government showing our progress on both institutional and government priorities.
Requests for Information
Only some of the information that OPA produces is provided on the OPA webpages. If you can’t find information you are seeking, please contact us. OPA can conduct customized analysis, in addition to our standard dashboards, and design and administer surveys. The first priority for requests are to address university priorities, supporting informed planning, evaluation, continuous improvement, and decision-making.
To request information, please send your request to OPA@kpu.ca, and include:
- The information you want
- How this information will be used—what question(s) are you trying to answer or decision to make?
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When you hope to have the information
Please submit your request well in advance as customized requests can take time to conduct, and may have to wait as we deal with other priorities. Someone will follow up to clarify your request and assess the feasibility of providing the information and timeline.
Resources for Personal Survey Research:
Regrettably, OPA is not able to provide assistance to KPU employees conducting personal research. OPA cannot provide contact information for KPU students or employees for individual research.
For individual faculty members conducting survey research, please contact OPA at OPA@kpu.ca for access to a survey tool that meets BC privacy legislation. Please note that the free online Survey Monkey tool is not compliant with BC privacy legislation.