GRANTS |
Innovation and Incubator Grants from the University System of Georgia |
Banner Taxonomy for Identifying HIPs Courses
Georgia Gwinnett College
2025
Project Lead:
Karen Perell-Gerson
QEP Director & Professor of Exercise Science
Project Overview:
Georgia Gwinnett College’s Quality Enhancement Plan, the Experiential Learning and Critical Thinking (EXACT) Plan, is committed to expanding student access to two high impact practices (HIPs), experiential learning and ePortfolio-based reflection, as means of developing critical thinking. Through intensive training of faculty to develop and integrate EXACT curriculum into courses, the EXACT Plan seeks to embed experiential learning and reflection throughout the Core IMPACTS framework and center its high impact practices within GGC’s academic programs.
During its first year of implementation, the EXACT Plan focused on integration of EXACT-approved activities into two courses of two separate disciplines in two core IMPACTS domains. During the second year of implementation in Fall 2025, the EXACT Plan will diversify its portfolio of approved activities by expanding the number of IMPACTS courses and disciplines and by integrating EXACT HIPs into the pre-major requirements of several academic programs. The EXACT Plan’s expansion model further diversifies and expands within IMPACTS and pre-major requirement offerings in Fall 2026, while moving into upper division majors classes and those courses traditionally included in experiential learning curriculum (e.g., service-learning, independent research, and internship courses).
Critical to the success of the EXACT Plan is reliable tracking of EXACT-approved curricula as well as an audit of those courses commonly associated with experiential learning (e.g., service-learning, independent research, and internship courses) to bring those courses where experiential learning occurs into the EXACT-approved curriculum. The reliability of this tracking turns upon not only providing a precise number of courses and sections where experiential learning curricula are implemented (as well as the number of students who are in those classrooms) but also indexing experiential learning curricula according to what level(s) of curriculum they are being integrated. As the EXACT Plan expands access to HIPs from the Core IMPACTS framework into academic programs, the expectation is that EXACT curriculum increases in intensity, rigor, and impact. At the same time, EXACT curriculum becomes more integrated into and particularized around learning outcomes of GGC’s academic programs. The EXACT Plan needs more than an attribute tracking hierarchy; it needs a taxonomy for capturing qualities of approved curriculum as they are tracked at the levels where they are implemented and an audit of those courses where experiential learning is occurring but not yet approved within the EXACT curriculum.
The project’s primary objective is to develop a coding taxonomy of experiential learning and EXACT-approved curriculum for tracking HIPs in BANNER. This taxonomy will streamline how the EXACT plan collects core measures of programmatic effectiveness – number of classes where the curriculum is integrated, number of faculty incorporating EXACT activities, and number of students who receive EXACT HIPs, as well as those courses where experiential learning is occurring outside of the EXACT Plan. The code taxonomy will be based on several factors that affect the curriculum design of EXACT activities and their placement in curriculum, such as: which of the four separate critical thinking learning outcome areas an activity aligns with; which School (science and technology, liberal arts, education, business, health science) or discipline the EXACT activity was created by and will be integrated into; or at what level of the curriculum (IMPACTS, pre-major, upper division) the activity has been deployed.
There are four expected outcomes of this proposal:
• Audit of existing BANNER attribute codes for updating existing code assignation processes and the development of new codes.
• Classification taxonomy, a classification scheme that provides sufficient precision for identifying learning outcomes qualities, design structure, and level of curriculum integration of the HIPs and that also is applicable to all GGC academic programs.
• Indexing guide that illustrates specific code features of the taxonomy with actual examples of EXACT-approved HIPs activities.
• Library where the EXACT Plan publishes approved activities so that GGC faculty and faculty at other institutions can view and use them as open educational resources (OERs).
The most notable challenge to the successful creation and implementation of the taxonomy is the rapid growth model of the EXACT Plan. Yet this is also the reason why the taxonomy must be created. The most feasible strategy for successfully developing and using the taxonomy is to schedule the development of the taxonomy to coincide with when the EXACT Plan’s expansion is least challenging to manage, the period between its second and third semester of implementation. If developed now, the taxonomy will be able to serve its explicit tracking function within BANNER and can take on an implicit second function, as a means of assisting faculty in developing EXACT-approved HIPs for their courses and programs.
Project Description:
This project directly supports data collection for demonstrating the effectiveness of GGC’s QEP. The EXACT Plan is obligated to assess successful attainment of its programmatic objectives through number of students, faculty, and courses where EXACT-approved HIPs are integrated.
It also supports an audit of existing experiential learning courses to assist in determining upper division courses which can more easily be developed into EXACT-approved courses. Further, future training of faculty developers of EXACT experiential and reflection course activities will benefit by allowing an effective indexing and cataloging of previously approved EXACT course curricula.
The EXACT Scholars program, a student recognition program based on the number, diversity, and complexity of EXACT-approved curricula students experienced toward degree completion, benefits from this taxonomy system. Without an attribute tracking system, the EXACT Plan, and GGC more broadly, would not be able to accurately capture student participation, which could prevent students from knowing how they can track and attain the EXACT Scholars certificate.
Data from the EXACT Plan’s first semester of implementation demonstrated that 1,729 students (404 HIST 1112 & 1474 ITEC 1001) were involved in EXACT activities. Forty faculty (6 HIST 1112 and 34 ITEC 1001) across 70 sections (14 HIST 1112 and 56 ITEC 1001) developed 5 experiential learning activities (4 HIST 1112 and 1 ITEC 1001). These data forecast the extent of need for tracking within the BANNER system, given the EXACT Plan’s projected expansion from Fall 2025 forward. In Academic Year 2026, 9 EXACT courses will be implemented across four of the GGC Schools.
Data were compiled using multiple spreadsheets kept separately at department levels, crosswalked with data from D2L Brightspace, Student Learning and Licensure (GGC’s ePortfolio platform), and BANNER. Their accuracy is the result of resolving differences among those data sources. They should be considered close approximations of participation but cannot be considered precise. Given how the EXACT Plan will expand, GGC can anticipate greater complexity in resolving such differences and a greater likelihood of inaccuracy, if a systemic tracking taxonomy is not implemented.
The concept of the EXACT Plan’s tracking taxonomy builds upon work of GGC’s previous QEP, the Internationalization of the Curriculum, or i-course initiative. The i-course initiative attempted to build a similar tracking system in BANNER three years into its implementation, but it did not account for the diversity of i-courses and could not capture how i-courses were being approved. The result was that it failed to accurately account for participating instructors and sections. A systemic taxonomy implemented earlier and representative of the diversity of implementation would significantly improve on GGC’s previous attempt to use BANNER to track HIPs.
The work takes place in three phases from summer 2025 through spring 2026. It will be conducted by the EXACT Plan’s faculty statistician under the guidance of the EXACT director in partnership with the Assistant Provost for Academic Assessment and Accreditation and Enrollment Management personnel.
SUMMER 2025: The faculty statistician will conduct an audit of the existing BANNER attribute codes used for experiential learning updating existing code assignation processes and the development of new codes which will cover existing experiential learning courses and EXACT-approved courses. This audit will include going through existing BANNER attribute codes such as service-learning, work-based learning, and research. These current codes only focus on the experiential learning attribute and amount of time within the course students can expect to participate in the experiential learning activity. The current codes focus primarily on upper division courses, do not reflect critical thinking learning outcome areas as required in EXACT-approved curricula, and may not even reflect current teaching pedagogy since several of these courses were coded in 2018.
Following this audit, the faculty statistician will analyze approved and proposed EXACT curricula to develop the new attribute taxonomy. This new attribute taxonomy will define the essential attributes of EXACT activities and the coding system to determine which existing experiential learning courses continue to meet these criteria. The faculty statistician will partner with Enrollment Management to embed the coding system within the BANNER registration system.
FALL 2025: The attribute taxonomy definitions will be verified with faculty practitioners for EXACT-approved courses and existing experiential learning courses using previous BANNER attribute codes as many of the existing experiential learning courses may not meet the new taxonomy definitions. The taxonomy will be implemented into the BANNER registration system by the end of semester. The Assistant Provost for Academic Assessment and Accreditation will extract data for reflective analysis of taxonomy effectiveness. The EXACT Plan faculty statistician will conduct analysis and share summative results and recommendations with the EXACT director and the EXACT Plan Advisory Committee.
SPRING 2026: Revision and/or expansion of the taxonomy based on reflective analysis of Fall 2025 data will be implemented. Examples of approved EXACT curricula will be incorporated into the faculty development model and a framework for an EXACT HIPs OER library will be designed in partnership between the faculty statistician and the EXACT Plan director. The EXACT Plan Director will design the curriculum development training guide referencing coded exemplars and incorporate into faculty training regimen for developing EXACT HIPs course curricula scheduled for May 2026. The EXACT Plan Director will develop the project plan for the EXACT HIPs OER library. This library will be housed within the Library Archives facilitated by the Kaufman Library. This library is open access and will have a link from the EXACT Plan website to the Library Archives for anyone to view.
Project Outcomes:
The deliverables are:
• EXACT HIPs attribute BANNER coding taxonomy
• Communications plan with Enrollment Management for assigning attribute codes to new EXACT courses as their curricula are approved each year forward
• Training guidebook with exemplars of coding taxonomy
• Project plan for the EXACT HIPs OER library
Once the new taxonomy is in place, these codes will roll over each year for the courses. EXACT-approved curricula are piloted for one year followed by discussion with the department offering the course to continue the course as an EXACT-approved course moving forward. There will be a yearly validation through the EXACT Plan as to maintaining the appropriate codes. Experiential learning courses not initially within the EXACT-approved curricula will be solicited to develop EXACT-approved curricula to incorporate all experiential learning courses into the EXACT Plan. The EXACT library effectively indexing and cataloging of previously approved EXACT course curricula will be housed within the Library Archives facilitated by the Kaufman Library. This library is open access and will have a link from the EXACT Plan website to the Library Archives for anyone to view. The training manual will also be housed within this Library Archives and will be utilized by all faculty desiring to develop EXACT courses. Following the completion of the QEP, the code validation for courses will be maintained by an Office of Experiential Learning which will also maintain the EXACT Scholars program.
