Guidance for Data Collection

Complete the INSPIRES Index efficiently, accurately, and thoroughly.

Index Overview

What is the INSPIRES Index?

The INSPIRES Index is an opportunity to examine your institution’s efforts to create a welcoming campus for students of diverse religious, secular, and spiritual identities on campus. The Index is composed of 53 items that map onto specific campus climate dimensions. Many of these questions are yes/no in nature and relate to departmental and university-wide structures, spaces, policies, and positions. The questions are organized by topic/focus in the following order:

  • Institutional policies

  • Organizational behaviors and climate

  • Negative interworldview engagement

  • Extra-/Co-curricular engagement

  • Spaces for support and spiritual expression

  • Training and development

  • Academic engagement

How will the INSPIRES Index benefit our campus?

The Index is an opportunity to assess current practice, to better understand how your campus compares to what students from different worldviews have expressed matters to them in feeling welcomed, and to set goals to improve the student experience.

Participation in INSPIRES can be used to raise awareness and support for religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews on campus by gathering a cross-divisional team to help complete the survey the first time, then reassembling the group to unpack the scores and identify areas for improvement.

The INSPIRES Index is as helpful as you make it! As an INSPIRES partner campus, your campus will become part of a community of practice and your institutional representative will be invited to update the survey annually to demonstrate growth.

What is the role of the campus representative?

The campus representative is the liaison with INSPIRES and the point person for this initiative on your campus, including gathering information needed to complete the survey. However, you do not have to know the answer to every question. It is okay if some pieces of data are not tracked or available for your institution, but do your best to answer all questions.

We encourage a team-oriented approach in which you invite relevant campus constituents to help gather the information needed.

  • With which functional areas should you consult? Survey items will include people, programming, spaces, and policy. Depending on the campus, this may include student affairs; spiritual life; residence life; academics; belonging, diversity, or student success.

  • Would certain offices, such as research and assessment, student life, or admissions, have access to certain data?

  • Who in leadership needs to approve or be informed of participation, both for the instrument’s internal use (now) and for the public-facing Index (later)? An opt-out opportunity will be sent with or after receiving scorecards.

  • What might be the benefits of inviting certain positions of leadership to join in at this stage of the process?

  • What relevant voices are missing? Who might be affected?

Additionally, there is an opportunity within the survey to send sections to colleagues who may have particular expertise.

Completing the Survey

The INSPIRES Index is a comprehensive assessment of your campus climate diverse worldviews. An overview of the project and answers to some frequently asked questions can be accessed here. We expect it to take between 30-60 minutes to complete, depending on whether it is filled by an individual or in a group setting. It will likely be challenging to complete all of the items in one sitting if you have not gathered the information or knowledgeable people beforehand. We provide a PDF of all the items to help you complete the survey incrementally (available once onboarded), and the survey allows you to save progress.

Institutions may email the inspiresindex@osu.edu at any time to designate an institutional representative and begin the onboarding process, or may simply click to begin the survey on this website’s homepage during the annual survey window. The INSPIRES survey opens in the Autumn and typically closes in December.

Step 1. Review the items

Review the PDF version before you begin the survey online. Your institutional representative may request it from inspiresindex@osu.edu. The online version follows the same format as the PDF.

Step 2. Respond

Respond to the items you feel confident answering. You may be surprised how much you know about your campus.

Step 3. Reach out

Identify sections or questions that require input from another person/department and reach out to those whose input is needed.

Step 4. Meet Constituents

We strongly recommend gathering key leaders (faculty, admin, students) together to help fill the survey. This creates a team invested in improving the student experience.

Step 5. Review

Consider who may need to review the responses, which may be the person to authorize going public after scorecards are received.

Step 6. Submit

Once you are confident you have completed the survey, hit "submit!"

Going Public!

We encourage all participating institutions to share their responses on the public-facing INSPIRES Index website. This resource is designed to help prospective students and families make informed decisions about the higher education institutions they are considering. Participation demonstrates that your campus values students’ religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews and is committed to continuous improvement toward fostering a welcoming climate for all.

Your campus will have an opportunity to review your results before confirming participation in the public-facing Index, through an opt-out invitation for the public-facing component. Regardless of your decision, your institution will be able use the results of the Index internally.

If at any point you have questions, please contact the INSPIRES team by emailing us. We are excited to support your involvement with the INSPIRES Index!

Timeline

Autumn
Survey Distribution

New campuses are invited to begin the survey and may contact INSPIRES to designate their institutional representative. Partner campuses receive an email from the INSPIRES team with a unique link to respond to the Index. The survey closes mid-December.

February–March
Results Received

Campuses receive a scorecard PDF, which includes their star ratings to the domain areas and their Index responses. New INSPIRES campuses also receive a recommendations report. Partner campuses are invited to a virtual event on how to use the results.

Spring
Going Public

Data is uploaded to the INSPIRES campus database. Campuses will need to opt-out of making their data public by April 30.

Summer
Recruitment

Campuses are welcome to contact INSPIRES year-round to be added to our contact list for the next cycle.

REACH OUT TO US!

We’re here to answer any questions.