Data Details

Other than the county demographics and labor force statistics on the Spotlight page, the dashboard is populated with metrics calculated from existing administrative records (i.e. existing records collected in the course of routine operations) provided by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS), the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), and Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities (OOD). OERC analysts accessed these records from the Ohio Longitudinal Data Archive (OLDA). The OLDA is a project of the Ohio Education Research Center (oerc.osu.edu) and provides researchers with centralized access to administrative data. The OLDA is managed by The Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research (chrr.osu.edu) in collaboration with Ohio's state workforce and education agencies (ohioanalytics.gov), with those agencies providing oversight and funding. For information on OLDA sponsors, see http://chrr.osu.edu/projects/ohio-longitudinal-data-archive.

Using OLDA administrative data, OERC analysts produce measures of workforce outcomes for individuals who complete various workforce programs. Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program (CCMEP) participation data are also included; CCMEP outcomes will be available in future releases.

To avoid re-identification, the OERC only reports results derived from 10 or more individuals. Throughout the site we note suppression where there are fewer than 10 individuals available to calculate a particular metric.

The OLDA includes a number of administrative data sources used to compile the participation and outcomes data displayed throughout the site. Following is a description of each data source:

• From ODJFS:
• Unemployment Insurance Wage (UI Wage) data is quarterly wage data for employees in Ohio whose employers file unemployment insurance with the state.
• Workforce Investment Act Standardized Record Data (WIASRD) was a federal standardized format for WIA participation and outcomes data. Starting in the 2015-16 program year, WIASRD was replaced by the Participant Individual Record Layout (PIRL), which is an upgrade of WIASRD to meet WIOA requirements.
• Labor Exchange Job Seeker data is a federal standardized format of One-Stop employment and workforce information services provided to job seekers.
• Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Data System (RAPIDS) is the federal database of registered apprenticeships. The OLDA receives data from RAPIDS that is specific to Ohio registered apprenticeships.
• From ODHE:
• Higher Education Information System (HEI) is student-level data for Ohio’s public colleges and universities.
• Aspire data includes participant-level records for Aspire participation (previously ABLE). GED data for Aspire participants has been historically provided by ODHE. Beginning in 2017 GED data is provided to the OLDA by the Ohio Department of Education.
• Ohio Technical Center (OTC) data includes participant and completer records, along with course and related credential information.
• From OOD:
• Vocational Rehabilitation participation data from the Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911).

The Participation tab under Workforce Programs in the Spotlight pages reports the full cohort of participants for each program. All participant data reported is for the 2016-17 program year. Age was calculated as of July of the beginning of the reported program year.

• Workforce Investment and Opportunities Act Title I (WIOA Title I) participants are those individuals identified in PIRL in the quarter after the end of the program year who had received a core staff-assisted service (such as job search or placement assistance) or an intensive service (such as counseling, career planning, or job training) and had not yet exited or had exited during the program year.
• Aspire participants are those individuals identified in the Aspire data collection system in the reported program year.
• Vocational Rehabilitation participants are individuals who are reported in the Rehabilitation Services Administration Case Service Report (RSA-911) as having exited the program with or without an employment outcome after receiving services. This file currently reports closed cases only. Participants are assigned to either Youth (24 years old or younger) or Adult services based on their age at the time of application.
• OTC participants are those individuals who attended an OTC course during the program year and completed at least 10% of the required course hours. Perkins OTC participants are those participants enrolled in a course at an OTC location that receives Perkins funding.
• Community college participants are all students enrolled in a public Ohio community college as identified in the student enrollment table of the HEI system. Perkins college participants are college students who have earned one or more credits in any career and technical education (CTE) program area during the program year that receives Perkins funding.
• State-funded financial aid funds college students through two programs:
• A Choose Ohio First participant is any individual identified as receiving Choose Ohio First funding during summer, autumn, and/or spring term of the relevant school year.
• An Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) participant is any individual identified as receiving OCOG funding during summer, autumn, and/or spring term of the relevant school year. Demographic information was identified by linking OCOG participants to HEI student entrance table.
• Apprenticeship participants include all individuals reported as currently registered in RAPIDS during the reported program year.
• Jobs for Veterans State Grant (JVSG) participants are those individuals who received staff-assisted services from staff funded through JVSG in the program year. JVSG services are identified through PIRL data, in which there are identifiers for both Disables Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) services, as well as services provided by Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives (LVER).
• Comprehensive Case Management and Employment Program (CCMEP) participants were identified and summarized by the ODJFS Office of Workforce Development in the CCMEP Annual Report for Program Year 2016.

Although there is variation in the services and intended service recipients of workforce development programs, the completer definition for each program was developed to maintain as much cross-program continuity as possible. Completers are included in the WSM when there is an associated identifier to enable matching with employment and credential outcomes. While most records include such identifiers, the WSM undercounts some portion of completers due to an imperfect ability to match all completers with their outcomes.

Below is a description of who is considered a completer from each program:

• Workforce Investment and Opportunities Act Title I service (WIOA Title I) completers are those individuals who have exited a WIOA Title I program from which the individual received a core staff-assisted service (such as job search or placement assistance) or an intensive service (such as counseling, career planning, or job training). Those individuals who participated in WIOA Title I through self-service, like OhioMeansJobs.com, or other less intensive programs are not included in the dashboard statistics.
  • WIOA Title I completers are reported separately for three categories of funding: adult, dislocated worker, and youth.
• Through 2015-16, an Aspire, Ohio Adult Readiness Education (Aspire) completer is an individual who has an exit status of either “completed a level and left” or “completed a level and advanced” within Aspire. Because there are multiple levels of Aspire, an individual may be considered a completer in multiple years.
• Outcomes are reported both for all Aspire completers, as well as for a subset of Aspire completers who earned a GED either in the quarter that they completed training, or within the four quarters following completion.
• Note: For those records in which an individual has completed a level but there is no exit date reported, outcomes are measured from the last day of the program year in which the individual was reported as completing Aspire (June 30). A sensitivity analysis of employment and wage outcomes shows that there is no meaningful difference between the aggregate outcomes of the group of Aspire completers with reported exit dates and the total group of Aspire completers including those individuals without reported exit dates.
• The Aspire data in the OLDA is missing identifiers for some individuals that allow us to match the completer with employment and credential outcomes. As a result, for Aspire outcomes, completers will be undercounted. In the most recent program year, for all Aspire completers, 15% were missing identifiers.
• Beginning in 2016-17, an Aspire completer is defined as an individual who has gained measurable skills during the program year and has not attended in the last 90 days. Because this new process requires a retroactive determination of completion (i.e. last 90 days), only those who completed in the first three quarters of the most recent fiscal year are currently reported. This analysis will be updated once data for a full year of completers is available.
• A Vocational Rehabilitation completer is an individual who has exited the program with an employment outcome or without an employment outcome after receiving services.
• OTC completers are individuals who complete an OTC course. An individual may be considered a completer in multiple years. In 2013-14, the data collection system was migrated and information about course type was not available; as a result, during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 program years we limited completers to courses of 75 hours or more. OTC data is currently complete and we resumed reporting all individuals in the OTC system in 2015-16.
• Perkins OTC completers are individuals completing a course at an OTC that receives Perkins funding.
• The OTC data in the OLDA is missing identifiers for some individuals that allow us to match the completer with employment and credential outcomes. As a result, for OTC outcomes, completers will be undercounted. In the most recent program year, for all OTC completers, more than half were missing identifiers.
• Community College completers are graduates or certificate completers from two-year public Ohio colleges.
• Perkins College completers are those graduates or certificate completers who (1) complete at least 12 career and technical education (CTE) credits within a single CTE program area sequence that is comprised of 12 or more academic and technical credits; or (2) completes a short term CTE program sequence of less than 12 credit units, which program receives Perkins funding.
• The HEI data in the OLDA is missing identifiers for some individuals that allow us to match the completer with employment and credential outcomes. As a result, for Community College outcomes, completers will be undercounted. In the most recent program year, for all completers, 0.5% were missing identifiers.
• State-funded scholarship and financial aid completers are those Choose Ohio First or Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG) recipients who have graduated with a two- or four-year degree within six years of receiving scholarship money.
• Note: The population of Choose Ohio First completers includes both public and private college students; however, we only have graduation data for public college students, and thus can only identify completers among the population of students attending public colleges or universities. Therefore, the Choose Ohio First completers are under-reported.
• The Choose Ohio First data is missing identifiers for some individuals that allow us to match the completer with employment and credential outcomes. As a result, for Community College outcomes, completers will be undercounted. In the most recent program year, for all completers, 2% were missing identifiers.
• Registered apprenticeship completers are those individuals who completed a registered apprenticeship in Ohio that is reported in the RAPIDS system.
  • RAPIDS data originally provided to the OLDA included identifiers for less than half of participants. OLDA data specialists used probabilistic matching on a collection of non-unique identifiers to match RAPIDS with employment and postsecondary data sources. The results of the process allowed analysts to match more than 80% of completers with outcomes. Although outcomes are now more reliable than before the matching process, completers are still undercounted by approximately 20%.
• Jobs for Veterans State Grant (JVSG) completers are those individuals who received staff-assisted services from staff funded through JVSG and exited during the program year. JVSG services are identified through PIRL data, in which there are identifiers for both Disables Veterans’ Outreach Program (DVOP) services, as well as services provided by Local Veterans’ Employment Representatives (LVER).

• Employment and earnings outcomes are calculated using Ohio’s UI Wage data for those individuals working in Ohio who are not (1) self-employed, or (2) employed by the Federal government.
• The Retention metric indicates whether an individual has the same main employer in the second calendar quarter after exit and the fourth calendar quarter after exit. Retention is calculated using UI Wage data. The main employer is defined as the employer from which an individual earns the most income in a particular calendar quarter.
• All records in the UI Wage data include a linkage identifier that enables deterministic matching of employment outcomes to program completers.
• Enrollment is a measure of who is enrolled in a higher education institution after exit from each workforce program. For this dashboard the enrollment data comes from the HEI, which includes only those students who are enrolled in Ohio’s public higher education institutions. The enrollment measure identifies whether an individual is enrolled in higher education during the calendar quarter of exit, or any of the four calendar quarters following exit.
• Credentials is a combined measure of outcomes using credentials individuals may earn from the range of workforce programs represented in WSM, including: GED, industry credential or state license (earned from an OTC course), apprenticeship certificate (earned from a registered apprenticeship program) or degree or certificate earned from an Ohio public institution of higher education. The credential metric counts credentials earned during the calendar quarter of exit, or in any of the four calendar quarters following exit.
• Credential outcomes are deterministically matched to program completers where possible; the remainder are linked probabilistically where sufficient personally identifiable information is included with the administrative data source to use for matching. Because of incomplete linkages, credential outcomes are undercounted.

Budget allocation data was provided to us directly by the state-level program administrators.

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