For Institutions

How an administration runs

Running the NASCE asks little of your staff. You sign an agreement, tell us how the survey should be tailored to your campus, and send a list of student emails. SPARC handles the rest, from fielding the survey to presenting your results.

The division of labor

What you provide, what we handle

Institutions are often surprised by how light the lift is. Four things come from you. Everything else is ours.

What you provide
  • A signed agreement naming your enrollment size and the modules you want to run.
  • A completed customization form: your majors, your engagement opportunities, and any incentive you want to offer students.
  • A list of student email addresses with preferred first names.
  • Sign-off on the finished survey before it goes into the field.

Most institutions handle all four through a single staff contact.

What SPARC handles
  • Building and customizing your survey instrument.
  • Sending every invitation and reminder, and monitoring response rates while the survey is open.
  • Cleaning the data, drawing any incentive winners, and scoring your results.
  • Benchmarking your institution against the national dataset and its peer segments.
  • Producing and presenting the full reporting package.
The timeline

Eleven weeks, start to results

A NASCE administration runs on a predictable schedule. From a signed agreement to your final presentation is roughly eleven weeks, and the demands on your team are concentrated in the first five.

As soon as possible
Signed agreement
Your enrollment size and chosen modules set the price and the shape of the administration.
Week one
Customization and incentive form
You tell us how the survey should reflect your campus, and whether you want to offer students an incentive to participate.
Week three
Survey finalized
We build your instrument and send it for your review. Nothing goes into the field without your sign-off.
Week five
Student email list
Email addresses and preferred first names, so every invitation reaches a student by name.
Week six
Survey launches
Administrations typically open on a Monday.
Week seven
Survey closes
Twelve days in the field, closing on a Friday.
About four weeks later
Report and presentation
Your scored results, benchmarked nationally, delivered and walked through with your team.
In the field

Twelve days, four invitations

Invitations go to individual student email addresses. The first reaches every student; the three that follow go only to those who have not yet responded, so students who complete the survey are not asked again.

12Days in the field
4Email invitations
1To all students
3To non-respondents

Participation is voluntary and responses are confidential. Students answer online, individually, and results are reported at the institutional level. No student is identified in anything your institution receives.

Tailored to your campus

The survey your students see is yours

The instrument stays comparable across institutions, which is what makes the benchmark meaningful. What changes is everything a student would recognize as local.

Your majors

Students select from your actual program list rather than a generic set.

Your engagement opportunities

The service programs and partnerships students can name are the ones your campus runs.

Your incentive

If you offer students an incentive to participate, it appears in the invitation and the survey introduction. We handle the drawing.

Your landing page

Students finishing the survey are sent to a page you choose, usually your community engagement office.

NASCE SERVICE AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FROM SPARC Plan your administration

See your institution's real number.

Tell us your enrollment and your timing, and we will map the schedule to your academic calendar.

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