As coronavirus outbreaks continue to threaten campuses across America, many people are turning to their college’s website with one simple question: How bad is it today?
The answer isn’t always clear.
Most colleges with students on campus have created a “dashboard” to provide, at least in theory, a straightforward, at-a-glance summary of the current level of risk. The dashboards are a mix of big-picture numbers, such as total positive Covid-19 cases, along with more-detailed breakdowns.
If you’re living in campus housing, it matters a lot to you whether that dorm has two Covid cases, or 40 Covid cases.
But their usefulness varies widely. Some colleges update the numbers weekly — an eternity when a new cluster is erupting. Others remove yesterday’s results when posting today’s numbers, making it hard to discern whether things are getting better or worse.
Some colleges share the number of “active” cases, which provides a helpful snapshot in time. Others do not. Positivity rates, a crucial indicator of whether enough testing is occurring, are not always disclosed.
A meaningful comparison of institutions is almost impossible. There is no uniform standard for which statistics dashboards should include or how often to update them.
The New York Times assembled a comprehensive national database of college Covid cases, but the newspaper noted that at least 250 colleges “ignored inquiries or refused to answer questions.” And because of the wide variations in how data are reported, the Times warned against using the numbers to make campus-to-campus comparisons.
A Question of Openness
During this tense and tumultuous fall semester, college dashboards have emerged as a transparency battleground. Institutions are grappling with what level of candor is appropriate during a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California at Irvine, said colleges have “more work to do” on the transparency front.
“If you’re embarrassed by anything, then that should be a sign that you’re not doing it right,” Noymer said.
Yet not every college thinks a dashboard’s information should be public. Arizona State University, for example, began the fall semester by refusing to share its Covid numbers.
The university said its decision was motivated, in part, by privacy concerns, although privacy experts say there is no evidence that releasing Covid figures violates federal rules.
Jay Thorne, an Arizona State spokesman, said the university also considered a dashboard to be of limited usefulness. The public can get more-precise information on their community, he said, from the state, which discloses Covid information by ZIP code.
Many of them have done a truly great job. But then there are a lot of failures out there.
But some faculty, students, and parents wanted a dashboard. So Arizona State created one this month.
“We did it because people demanded it,” Thorne said. “We decided to offer the information in the way people were asking for it.”
For image-conscious colleges, the public-relations risks of a dashboard are clear: Administrators might watch in horror after an outbreak occurs, and as the data become increasingly unflattering.
But the alternative, where little or no data are shared, can leave the campus dangerously uninformed.
“If you’re living in campus housing, it matters a lot to you whether that dorm has two Covid cases, or 40 Covid cases,” said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. A student might choose to leave campus if cases skyrocket, he said.
“That is a potentially decisive statistic in your life,” LoMonte said. “And there’s no reason to withhold that.”
Howard P. Forman, a professor of public health at Yale University, said it’s not surprising that colleges would be reluctant to create dashboards — given how the data can lead to institutions’ having to answer some uncomfortable questions.
“Many of them have done a truly great job,” Forman said. “But then there are a lot of failures out there.”
Forman joined up with another Yale professor, along with students from several colleges, to create ratecoviddashboard.com, a website that assigns A-to-F letter grades to colleges’ Covid dashboards.
The evaluators consider whether a dashboard is easy to read, and also whether it includes important context, such as a breakdown of student cases versus faculty/staff cases. Providing data for the surrounding community is also important, Forman said, as colleges have an obligation to their neighbors.
“If we lead to death and harm in our communities, then we have failed at our ultimate responsibility,” Forman said.
Most colleges receive a passing grade from the site. But some perform poorly, in the team’s estimation. The University of Rochester received a D+ for a dashboard that was difficult to read and not updated daily.
Sara Miller, a University of Rochester spokeswoman, said the campus’s dashboard is accurate and new positive cases are added “within hours” of when they are known.
“In the coming days we will be launching an expanded dashboard version of our Covid-19 site that includes additional data points and aligns with recently released college and university guidance from New York State on key metrics to present,” Miller said.
A Student’s Perspective
When Covid-19 began disrupting the world in January, Benjy Renton, a Middlebury College senior, was studying abroad in Beijing. Renton’s China travel blog morphed into regular updates on the early days of the pandemic.
After his study-abroad program was canceled, Renton returned to the United States and began tracking Covid cases at colleges across the country. He scans dozens of university dashboards for the data, which he posts on his blog.
The dashboards are informative, Renton said, but also frustrating.
Take the University of Georgia: The flagship institution is holding in-person classes in a state hard-hit by the virus, and it has had more than 3,000 total Covid cases.
But the university’s dashboard is updated just once a week.
“There’s a lot that changes in a week,” Renton said. “And by the time you update your case numbers in a week, you’ve lost a lot of ground in the chance that you can make an intervention or do something to slow the spread of the virus. … I think it is a disservice to the college community.”
The ratecoviddashboard.com website also faults Georgia for its lack of daily updates, but it praises the university for sharing its total number of tests, and for separating employee and student data.
Overall grade: B-minus.
Renton worries about the Covid cases that never show up on campus dashboards. Many of the statistics are “self reported” by students who were tested in the community, not at their institution. But not every student self-reports the results.
“It’s definitely a gross undercount,” Renton said.
Hints of Progress
If campus dashboards are imperfect, they are at least improving. The potential life-or-death impact of Covid’s spread has brought public pressure for colleges to enhance their transparency.
Residents of smaller college towns, in particular, have a keen interest in how their local campus is handling Covid. In Boulder County, Colo., for example, nearly 70 percent of the Covid cases reported between August 24 and September 13 were connected to the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus.
Teresa Valerio Parrot lives in the Boulder area and operates a public-relations firm with many higher-ed clients. Parrot said Boulder residents demanded a better-designed dashboard from their local university, and they got it.
The dashboard was updated, Parrot said, with breakdowns of student cases versus employee cases, and new data on the prevalence of the virus. A successful dashboard is one that the surrounding community is satisfied with, she said.
“The critical element is: What is your community asking for, and are you meeting them there?” Parrot said.
Forman said his dashboard-ratings website has prompted some colleges to reach out directly. A college might say that it has improved its dashboard, and would like to be rated again.
Or, the college asks: If we update our dashboard, will you re-evaluate us?
“That’s nice. We want that,” Forman said. “We want them to elevate to the best possible dashboard they could get.”
