Group Members: Date:

(alphabetical order, start with the family name first)

CONCEPT PAPER TEMPLATE1

Proposed Title of Research Interest

Improving the Teacher Efficiency Rating (TER) System of MSU-IIT through the use of Web
Technology and Data Management and Visualization

Area of Study (Field of Specialization)

Data Management, Data Visualization, Usability, User Interface, Web Development, Teacher
Efficiency Rating

Background of the Study (What have you read that has had an impact on your thinking
about the topic?)

Effective teaching leads to quality education. It is paramount for every academic institution to be
able to evaluate the performance of their teachers and the quality of education it provides.
Lacking good data on teaching effectiveness, administrators are at a loss when assessing return
on professional development investments. Without efficient data management to collect, explore,
and understand feedbacks, it is hard for us to know whether our efforts are moving us in the right
direction. Visualizing captured digital information is an added-value to an organization.
Visualized data is easy to digest and much efficient to present and explore compared to raw data,
especially in large volumes.

Abrami, Theall, and Mets (2001) reported that student ratings “serve as tools for instructional
improvement, as evidence for promotion and tenure decisions, as the means for student course
selection, as one criterion of program effectiveness, and as the continuing focus of active
research and intensive debate”. Cashin (1999) reported, “Many colleges and universities rely
heavily, if not solely, on student rating data as the only systematic source of data collected to
evaluate teaching”. And according to Selden (1999), “Student ratings are now the most widely
used source of information on teaching effectiveness”. Thus, the systematic management of
teacher evaluation data is essential to any academic institution.

Data management is the practice of collecting, keeping, and using data securely, efficiently, and
cost-effectively. The goal of data management is to help people, organizations, and connected
things optimize the use of data within the bounds of policy and regulation so that they can make
decisions and take actions that maximize the benefit to the organization. A robust data
management strategy is becoming more important than ever as organizations increasingly rely on
intangible assets to create value. ("What is Data Management", Oracle, 2019)

It is the conversion of data into information--data converted to a format that facilitates a decision
maker's ability to make a more effective decision--that drives data's ultimate asset value and
facilitates its ability to generate new business opportunities or reduce fraud, waste, and abuse.
(Collins, Virginia, and Joel Lanz, 2019, p. 22+)

According to Tufte (2001), what is to be sought in designs for the display of information is the
clear portrayal of complexity. As an organization accumulates data over time the complexity of
getting and communicating valuable information also grows. It would be a tedious and complex
process to get insight and substantial information out of those accumulated data especially if it is
using paper-based technology.

The Early epidemiologist John Snow’s 1854 map with data help saved many lives. Snow
mapped the location of London’s 13 public wells and 578 cholera deaths by stacked bars
perpendicular to their location. His graphic, in some way, helped convince the city to shut down
1
Adapted and modified from Kenyatta University Graduate School Post Graduate Concept Paper Template.
Accessed at 01 June 2015
http://www.ku.ac.ke/schools/graduate/images/stories/docs/concept_paper_template_postgrad_students.pdf
the infected well. It clearly shows that a good chart can inspire action.

Tufte (2001) posited the following principles of graphical excellence:

"Graphical excellence is the well-designed presentation of interesting data --a matter of

"Graphical excellence consists of complex ideas communicated

with clarity, precision, and efficiency."

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) integration has been a constant effort in
every organization around the globe simply because it aids people to be more productive and
efficient especially in dealing with large-scale and complex matters. In education, appropriate
use of ICT can transform the whole teaching-learning processes leading to quality education and
much more. With that, a number of researches are done to find ways to innovate and enhance
education, and to understand its role and impact. Even up to this day, more researches are needed
to be done on the fact that technology is constantly evolving exponentially.

Statement of the Problem (as far as you are aware of, what is the gap of knowledge in your
research interest based on readings/existing literatures? Why does this research need to be
conducted?

The Teacher Efficiency Rating System of Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of
Technology (MSU-IIT) is established to measure teacher effectiveness which is done every end
of the semester. There are three groups of people that will rate the teachers, their heads (Dean
and Department Chairman), their peers, and the students. For the students, traditional in-class,
paper and pen type evaluations are practiced. With peer evaluation, some colleges and
departments use online forms like Google forms but most used the manual method. And the
computation of results is done manually. With the current procedure, the obvious issues are the
labor-intensive process and the slow delivery of results. The process can still be streamlined to
deliver timely and meaningful feedback to teachers which is important to improve instruction.
According to Kelly, M. et al (1997), one of the apparently "obvious" benefits of going online
with teaching evaluation is the minimization of administrative workload. Unfortunately, MSU-
IIT has not yet enjoyed such benefits.

Hobson and Talbot (2001) concluded that well-developed student evaluations with adequate data
may provide some of the best measures of teaching effectiveness. The problem is, how much
data is adequate and are we getting adequate valuable information? In MSU-IIT, the evaluation
results are used only on a semestral basis and the previous data are archived and sit idly in
storage. Currently, if the administrators would ask for statistical data and consolidate reports for
all teachers' evaluations for the past 10 years, that would be tiresome and time-consuming
efforts. In that scenario, school leaders are not able to get adequate information badly needed for
critical decision making. Other than the accessibility of information problems for administrators,
it is clear that there is a lack of emphasis on the more effective use of data and there is a
substantial amount of information that isn't revealed.

The current setup of the institute's teacher efficiency rating system of the institute needs
improvement. It is not systematic and efficient in terms of data management and it is not possible
to communicate large datasets into meaningful insights, data visualization for example, that
would create a value needed to establish a decision support system.

Theall and Franklin (2001) stated, “Few issues in higher education are as sensitive, divisive, and
political as faculty evaluation and in particular the quality and value of the information provided
by students in their evaluations of teachers and courses”. Moreover, Theall and Franklin
suggested that a more beneficial direction would be to improve the knowledge and skills of those
who use the data and, thereby, decrease the issues of mistrust and misuse of the data.

Other than the improvement of the faculty evaluation system, knowledge and skills of end-users
of that data can be improved with the use of information technology. However, such
implementation is not yet present and tested in MSU-IIT. ICT integration can be the key but
how to utilize it is a big question.

We are living in a golden age of data management and data graphics yet we have not fully
utilized and taken advantage of these technologies for the betterment of our school. What if we
integrate these tools into our teacher evaluation process? Will it make a difference? What would
be its impact on administrators, teachers, and students?

Objectives of the Study (What does the study hope to achieve? Give at least three).

1. To develop an Online Teacher Efficiency Rating (TER) System prototype

2. To address the technical problems associated with collecting, storing, and processing
results of students, peer, and heads' feedback data through the use of web technology and
data management tools

3. To test the viability and robustness of the overall system design

4. To give recommendations for planning, designing, and implementing a good TER

Research Locale and Respondents (Where will the study be conducted? Who will be the
target respondents?)

MSU-IIT administrators, faculty, staff, and students.

Literature Review: (What literature do you intend to review and why? Five for MA/MS
students and at least 10 for PhD/Doctorate students)

1. Lit 1

2. Lit 2

3. Lit 3

4. Lit 4

5. Lit 5

Theoretical Framework (What tentative theory/ies will you use in analyzing your material?
Why this/these theories?

Proposed Methods/Procedures (This answers the question: How will you conduct the
study?)
References

Oracle. 2019. What is Data Management. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from
https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-data-management/

Collins, Virginia, and Joel Lanz. (2019). Managing Data as an Asset. The CPA Journal, June
2019, p. 22+. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A593675229/GPS?
u=phmsu&sid=GPS&xid=95702f67. Accessed 18 Nov. 2019.

Tufte, Edward R. 2001. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (2nd edition) Cheshire,
Connecticut: Graphics Press, p. 13+.

Note: You may use additional sheet/s if necessary. Must be computer-encoded and in A4 sized
bond paper.

Template from: https://www.msuiit.edu.ph/academics/schools/scs/about/index.php