Authors call for institutional leaders to increase use of data in decision making
Colleges
and universities have begun to embrace the need for data-informed
decision making to help drive institutional innovation and improvement,
but more progress is needed before the analytics revolution takes firm
root in higher education.
That is the conclusion of The Data-Enabled Executive: Using Analytics for Student Success and Sustainability (2 MB PDF), a paper co-authored by Jonathan S. Gagliardi, associate director at ACE’s Center for Policy Research and Strategy (CPRS), and Jonathan M. Turk, senior policy research analyst at CPRS.
It is intended as a primer on how to further
infuse data-informed decision making into the college presidency and
other senior leadership positions. The Data-Enabled Executive
explores the opportunities and challenges related to data analytics in
four key areas—student outcomes, equity and inclusion, resource
strategies, and infrastructure—and also includes examples of promising
practices by institutions and systems that are leveraging data in novel
and effective ways.
The paper grows out of a May 2017 ACE
day-long convening attended by college and university presidents, other
campus and higher education thought leaders, and analytics experts that
explored data challenges facing postsecondary leaders as they seek to
improve student outcomes, promote equity and inclusion, and create more
sustainable organizational models.
It notes that the use of data analytics has yet to be fully embraced by institutional leaders, citing data from the American College President Study 2017
that only 12 percent of presidents ranked the use of institutional
research and evidence among the top five areas of growing importance for
presidents in the future.
Some of the obstacles to more institutions
making more advanced use of data include: varied data quality and poor
data connectivity across different parts of institutions; fears over
misuse of data; and upfront costs that can impede the development of
analytics cultures despite the potential of long-term savings.
Still, the paper states, “the pressure to use
data will only grow from this point on. Leaders will need to be well
versed in the opportunities and challenges of leveraging data in order
to better inform business models centered on student outcomes, equity
and inclusion, and optimization.”
In conjunction with the release of the paper, Gagliardi and Philip Wilkinson, a CPRS graduate research associate and a doctoral candidate at the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education, have also co-authored a post on Higher Education Today looking at related issues involving how campuses can better use resources to serve their missions. To read that post, click here.