TAP INTO INSTITUTIONAL PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
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Why Data Governance Matters in Higher Education
Data is at the core of decision-making within higher education institutions. Whether it’s monitoring student success, improving resource allocation, or ensuring compliance,...
EDUCAUSE Review: From Hype to Help: Making GenAI Useful for Enterprise Reporting and Data Analytics
This article was published by the EDUCAUSE Review on October 29, 2024. It is reposted here under under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International License.
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3 Strategies for Continuous Improvement and Reporting in Higher Ed
Many higher education institutions today are “data-rich but insight-poor.” Between course completion rates, learning management system logs, end-of-term surveys,...
Turning Data Into Direction: Making Learning Outcomes Count
In the bustling corridors of higher education, data is everywhere. But without purposeful action, even the most meticulously gathered data can become just another report...
Why Data Governance Matters in Higher Education
Data is at the core of decision-making within higher education institutions. Whether it’s monitoring student success, improving resource allocation, or ensuring compliance,...
How to Align Outcomes and Build a Robust Assessment Plan in Higher Education
Student success goes beyond traditional teaching practices. It requires a systematic approach to designing assessment plans, aligning learning outcomes and engaging faculty...
AI-Driven Enhancements in HelioCampus Assessment & Credentialing
As part of our AI strategy, we’re expanding automation and data analysis capabilities in our Assessment & Credentialing products. These updates will simplify how institutions...
How Semantic Layers & Prompt Engineering Empower AI Data
Marley was dead to begin with. It's a great opening line and not just because it instantly draws you in, but it's important to the story. If we don't keep in mind the fact...
Using a SWOT Analysis to Supercharge Your Institutional Assessment
Let’s be real—assessment in higher education can sometimes feel a lot like herding cats. By that I mean: chaotic, can get a “little hairy”, and some people definitely seem to...
Higher Ed Data Platform: 6 Key Characteristics for Modern Institutions
Higher education is at a crossroads when it comes to managing and utilizing data. Universities and colleges are generating more data than ever - student information, research...
When the bill comes due, institutional data can help
In 2015, when I first began working with colleges and universities all over the country, we didn’t call what we were doing “performance management.” Fast forward to 2024, and...
EDUCAUSE Review: From Hype to Help: Making GenAI Useful for Enterprise Reporting and Data Analytics
This article was published by the EDUCAUSE Review on October 29, 2024. It is reposted here under under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International License.
It's Just Semantics when it comes to AI in Analytics
A year ago, there was a lot of AI hype and less substance as vendors and institutions were developing their strategies and policies to adapt to this new normal. This year,...
Does Your Data Help You Answer These 4 Questions to Future-Proof Your Institution?
Leaders at institutions of higher education stand at a crossroads. The landscape around them is changing rapidly as a result of growing external pressures like enrollment...
3 Data Quality Challenges in Higher Ed and How to Improve them With an Enterprise Analytics Initiative
One of the most common refrains we hear from institutions considering implementing an enterprise analytics initiative is concern that they’re “not ready” because they have...
5 Ways to Transform Your Data Culture: A Campus-Wide Checklist
Institutions increasingly recognize the imperative of adopting a robust data culture as part of their strategic processes. This shift is driven by the necessity to remain...
5 Benefits of Shifting to an Accreditation & Assessment Platform
Institutions across the country are continually seeking ways to better capture assessment data, bring uniformity to their process, and make the results efficiently and...
6 Ways to Use Labor Cost Benchmarking to Support Financial Decision-Making
Understanding your labor spend is critical to financial decision-making. Oftentimes, departmental budgeting approaches limit visibility into true labor spending patterns,...
How to Build Buy-in for Labor Cost Benchmarking Across Your Institution
Labor cost benchmarking data can be powerful in its ability to enable you to gain visibility into critical financial and workforce insights. By measuring academic and...
5 Tips to Streamline Your Higher Ed Analytics Platform Purchase
Your institution has decided to fund a higher education analytics platform and is gearing up for a purchase. However, this decision to invest is just the beginning. Even once...
High Stakes. Higher Education.
At our Community Summit earlier this month, we announced our new tagline as the theme of the event: High stakes. Higher education. The phrase was intended to set the stage...
Unpacking the New WASC Standards for Evidence-Based Improvement
Disjointed and hard-to-access data is one of the biggest challenges facing higher ed institutions today. Or is it an opportunity? Acknowledging your obstacles to centralize...
How to Develop Program Goals in Higher Education
Setting rigorous growth goals for your students is critical to their academic success. Assessment data provides the insights needed to set those goals—and to deliver...
Performance-Based Funding is Catalyzing the Need for Institutional Analytics
The shift to Performance-Based Funding (PBF; sometimes also known as “Outcomes-Based Funding”) as a means of determining state allocations to higher education institutions is...
The Importance of Quality Data Governance and Transparency
As more and more institutions shift to deeper data sophistication as part of their decision-making process, the need for quality data governance and analytical transparency...
Four Assessment Trends in Higher Education
The word "Authentic" was selected as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary; it was one of the most reviewed words in the dictionary's 500,000 entries....
MSCHE Revised Its Evidence Requirements—Are you ready?
In July 2023, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) launched its newly revised accreditation standards which explicitly call for more concrete evidence of...
How Finance Leaders are Evolving Their Role in Higher Ed
As higher education continues to move into a previously unexplored landscape, professionals and institutions find themselves at a crossroads where previous experiences and...
How to Visualize Data in Higher Education
Accurate, accessible data continues to be one of the most imperative assets available to higher education institutions. While the accuracy and availability of data are...
Designing a Program Scorecard for Continuous Improvement
The purpose of an office of institutional effectiveness is to collect, manage and distribute evidential data that is used to inform decision-making. If the data is not...
How to Digitally Transform Assessment in Higher Ed
We’ve established what Digital Transformation (Dx) is for higher education and why it’s important. But embracing digital transformation at your institution and actually...
Digital Transformation for Assessment in Higher Education
Over the last 20 years, the world has experienced a technological surge unlike any seen before. This new digital age has introduced many changes — some advantageous, some...
What’s measured gets managed: Aligning smart data practices to fuel institutional effectiveness
As we covered in part one of this article series, institutional effectiveness as a broad concept encompasses both the traditional measures of institutional health as well as...
Can Your Institution Withstand Shocks to the System? Accreditors Want You to Prove It
While higher ed is slowly bouncing back from the pandemic, adjusting to the ‘new normal’ remains a challenge. This is apparent in the ongoing exodus ofcollege president...
How to Survive the Enrollment Cliff in Higher Education
If you are a part of higher education, or have even been attuned to news of the industry over the past decade, you’ve undoubtedly heard calls of enrollment decline. While...
Steering Institutional Success: Data-Driven Decisions in Higher Ed
For forward-thinking colleges and universities, Institutional Effectiveness is no longer the small office that helps with accreditation. Nor is re-accreditation their sole...
What Are the Different Budget Models in Higher Education?
Budget models in higher education are the structured methods institutions use to fund their strategic initiatives, as well as the prioritization of how those funds are...
4 Steps for Financial Viability When HEERF Grants Deplete
The current sustainability of higher education has been an uneasy topic for many in the industry over the past three years. With the unforeseeable challenges created by the...
8 Ways to Make Your Self-Study Meaningful Beyond Accreditation
Self studies serve a number of important purposes besides reaccreditation. Taking a deeper dive into your institutional effectiveness and improvement data regularly can help...
Agile Wayfinding—6 Steps to Reboot Your Integrated Planning Process
Introduction In 2019, the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC) reorganized from two schools divided by undergraduate and graduate into three schools based on...
Smarter benchmarking helps colleges thrive
Colleges and universities are increasingly being asked to support their decisions with data. A 2022 report from Educause highlights this as one of the top trends driving...
5 Digital Transformation Trends for Higher Ed
"Is College Worth It?" It's the headline that keeps popping up everywhere in higher education and national headlines. That's becausemore than half of adultsdon't think the...
Top 5 Institutional Effectiveness Trends
The higher education landscape continues to evolve with growing pressures. Still, there are some promising trends that institutional leaders should keep their eye on if they...
How to Improve Your Institutional Effectiveness Strategy
Institutional effectiveness in higher education has had its difficulties. We previously discussed the 3 challenges impacting institutional effectiveness in higher education...
3 Challenges for Institutional Effectiveness in Higher Ed
Institutional effectiveness is not a new concept. The Society of Colleges and University Planning (SCUP) defines institutional effectiveness as “a higher education...
Defining a Proficiency Scale for Your Institutional Outcomes
As higher education leaders who are focused on supporting student learning and enabling their proficiency in requisite skills for professional practice in careers, it is...
4 Institutional Effectiveness Indicators to Watch
Today's higher education leaders are living through unprecedented times. The pandemicupended business as usualfor colleges and universities, causing the largestenrollment...
Skills-based Transcripts Better Demonstrate the Value of Degrees
Is a college degree still worth it? It’s the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds. That is because the hottest commodity in the labour market right now isn’t a...
Data-Informed Decision-Making in Higher Ed—Despite the IT Labor Shortage
It’s a paradox. The pressure to answer questions about enrollment, student success, and financial planning is at an all-time high, pushing higher ed leaders to rely more on...
Developing a CLR: Critical Insights From Alumni, Students & Employers— Q&A From Leaders at University of Maryland Global Campus
With the value of higher education under heightened review by learners and employers, colleges and universities are quickly pivoting to a University of the Future model,...
4 Technology Essentials to Support Assessment in Higher Ed
As an assessment practitioner, I know how important it is to balance research-based assessment processes with flexibility and collaboration among your institutional teams. I...
Inspiration from ‘Ted Lasso’ for Assessment Professionals
One of the things that has brought me great joy this past year is the Apple TV hit comedy, Ted Lasso. While seemingly about a U.S. football coach who is brought to England to...
5 ways higher ed can harness financial aid beyond just boosting yield
On most campuses, academic affairs and student services—but rarely other units—prioritize student success. Colleges and universities dedicate significant time and resources...
Redesigning College Transcripts for Students and Employers
Student success is heavily dependent on student engagement in courses AND in the institution at large. My interest in micro-credentials and Comprehensive Learner Record ...
Renee Teate on SQL, Data Science, & Writing Her First Book
If you work with data, there’s a chance you’ve heard of “Data Science Renee.” You may know her from her “Becoming a Data Scientist” podcast or heard her speak at events like...
Leveraging AWS Redshift for Data Warehousing
(This blog is part of a series on how HelioCampus uses AWS to support our data analytics platform)
Financial Winter is Coming for Higher Ed, Despite Stimulus
The next few years will come straight out of “Game of Thrones” for universities. Many leaders project optimism and conduct business per usual while a select few recognize an...
Does Your Institution Evaluate ROI Analytics? If not, It Should
Colleges and universities implement analytics programs in order to support a wide variety of institutional goals, including recruitment, student success, and academic program...
Utilizing Amazon S3 to Support a Data Infrastructure
(This blog is part two of a series on how HelioCampus uses AWS to support our data analytics platform)
A Plan for Financial Sustainability
The higher education landscape has changed dramatically as a multitude of challenges have threatened the financial stability of institutions. Declining enrollments and...
Can College Predictive Models Survive the Pandemic?
Though many are eager to forget 2020, data scientists will be keeping the year top of mind as we determine whether the pandemic’s impact makes 2020 data anomalous or an...
How Strong Is the Relationship Between Your CFO and Provost?
In November, University of California, Riverside announced its hire of Elizabeth Watkins as its new provost and executive vice chancellor.
The Data Analytics Platform – A Foundational View
It would be an understatement to say that the HelioCampus community likes data; it is more like we live and breathe data. From strategic meetings to quarterly presentations...
How Much Has COVID Cost Colleges? $183 Billion
What a year. Higher ed came into 2020 facing its share of financial challenges: a negative outlook for the entire sector, widespread operating deficits, stark enrollment ...
Here’s the truth about the campus budget crisis
With the fall semester behind us, recently released data is beginning to bring greater definition to the impact of the pandemic on colleges and universities and what...
A University's Data-Driven Response to COVID
Like with any significant moment in time, “Where were you in 2020?” will likely become a topic of conversation for higher ed leaders for years to come, quickly followed by,...
A Data-Informed Strategy
Following the 2008 recession, Frostburg State University, a Maryland institution of 5,300 students, experienced ongoing reductions in both admission and retention rates. To...
When Evaluating Academic Operations, Begin With Better Measures
In its DNA, higher education is familial and collaborative, and no members of university communities want to be in their current predicaments. As institutions look to the...
Financial Sustainability in Higher Education: Challenges and Solutions
The higher-ed industry was experiencing an era of uncertainty and change, even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Background complexities of a changing educational...
To Open or Not: Case Study in Strategic Decision-Making
My campus is not alone in having a battle about the decision to bring back students to campus, although the decision has already been made and students are back. Arguments...
What Data Can — and Can’t Yet — Tell Us
When my twin brother, a commercial pilot, flies a plane, he knows sensors informed by tens of thousands of prior flights are equipped to predict engine failures. But that...
Cultivating a Climate of Data-Informed Decision-Making at UMass Amherst
Even before COVID-19 became a key part of our vocabulary this spring, data-informed decision-making has been a trending topic of conversation among college and university...
Presidential Priorities: Areas of Concern for College and University Presidents
Higher education was already facing an environment of rising costs and increased competition when COVID-19 struck, leaving higher-ed leaders across the country grappling with...
How Your College Can Survive the Pandemic
This blog is co-authored by Javier Miyares, former president of University of Maryland Global Campus.
More than a Score: Extracting the Greatest Value from Predictive Modeling
Tackling a high-impact predictive modeling project can be intimidating, particularly for chief information officers and other upper administrators without extensive data...
3 points to consider before taking on data analytics
Having helped organizations and institutions harness the power of data analytics for two decades, I’m encouraged to see higher education giving data the attention it’s long...
The Value of Student Segmentation
Rising competition for college and university students will only continue to grow as the number of high school graduates shrink over the next decade, student demographics...
Transforming Institutional Effectiveness: Insights from Craig Rudick
I first began working in higher education data analytics in 2013 after transitioning from academic astrophysics. My initial impression was, “This is it, huh?” I was a bit...
A Playbook for Creating an Institutional Analytics Program
A large public research university faced with steady growth wanted to understand how to effectively scale its enrollment yield, graduation rates, facilities and other factors...
3 Major Changes to the Role of the Higher Ed CIO
Only 30 years ago, there were fewer than two dozen CIOs in the entire industry of higher education. Now, more than two-thirds of colleges and universities have a CIO, with...
Making Analytics the Campus Modus Operandi
The mantra "data-driven decision-making" is one that institutions of higher education are adopting at an increasing clip. More than three-quarters of colleges and...
A Guide to Using IPEDS Data in Higher Education
As the higher education marketplace continues to tighten due to shifting demographic patterns as well as recent financially impactful events, institutions are looking for...
11 Questions to Ask Your Campus CIO About Information Security
Picture this scenario: An employee leaves for a family vacation and plans to do some work while being out of the office. So, they take their company laptop on the trip. But,...
Is Your Institution Really Ready for Predictive Analytics?
The idea of an advisor telling a student who just received an associate's degree to next enroll in a Ph.D. program seems farcical. But, leaders in higher education act...
3 Questions Today’s Campus Leaders Should Ask
A single piece of data can reveal a lot. For example, whether colleges and universities are meeting their enrollment goals or comparing the number of merit based scholarships...
Making Analytics Accessible, Understandable, and Actionable
Key Takeaways Higher education data professionals need to work to take the complexity out of institutional data, making it easily accessible, understandable, and actionable
Institutional Analytics is Hard Work: A Five-Year Journey
Higher education leaders have been faced with competing and conflicting challenges for years. Increasing competition for students, a continuous decline in funding, and...
