Design and evaluation of performance dashboard for paramedical faculty of Army University of Medical Sciences: Protocol for a mixed method study

Abstract

Abstract Background Faculty, as an educational system, comprises a combination of various educational groups, faculty members, researchers, students, and administrative staff. Each group of faculty members contributes to different fields. The management of data records related to the performance and activities of the faculty and its members leads to better monitoring, identification of weaknesses and strengths, and, ultimately, promotion of the performance of the faculty. In fact, the dashboard is a data management tool that can be used for monitoring and evaluating a faculty’s performance. Objectives Therefore, the aim of this study was to design a functional dashboard for the faculty of paramedical sciences and evaluate its functionality using the approach of sequential mixed methods. Methods This is a mixed methods study with sequential mixed designs that will be conducted in four main phases. In the first phase, all the resources related to the functional dashboard are reviewed in order to identify its operational requirements. In the second phase, the requirements and necessities of the software are determined by both qualitative (interview) and quantitative (Delphi) methods. In this phase, eight people will be interviewed during the qualitative phase, and thematic analysis will be used to analyze the data. For the quantitative step, the two- round Delphi technique will be conducted by the purposeful selection of 21 individuals. In the third phase, code writing of the software is performed using C-Sharp programming language in the Visual Studio environment. Finally, 15 people among faculty members and managers, who are users of the dashboard software, are selected to evaluate the software. Users’ satisfaction with the dashboard software is assessed using the Dashboard Assessment Usability Model. The data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS version 21 software. Conclusion The final product of this study is a dashboard for monitoring, evaluating performance, and managing resources at the faculty level. The steps of designing this dashboard can be a basis for developing better dashboards for evaluating other faculties or universities.