Blog

Our latest eBook explores the topic of Institutional Planning for higher education. A lot is riding on universities’ performance metrics: enrollment and recruitment numbers, student outcomes and livelihoods, and funding. In fact, more than 30 state governments in the U.S. have policies or formulas that allocate funds to public institutions based on student performance factors 1. Universities with the ability to improve performance with comprehensive and data-driven institutional planning stand to fare better than their peers.

Institutions of higher learning continue to move rapidly toward data-informed decision making, and this movement was strongly reflected at the 45th annual North East Association for Institutional Research conference. The City of Bridges played host to almost 400 representatives from over 200 institutions and associations to better understand methods and best practices for Creating the Bridge to Data-Informed Decision Making.

Another great EDUCAUSE conference is in the books! Last week, our team had the opportunity to attend this important conference to connect with clients & friends, and moderate a panel of education leaders.

I recently had the pleasure of attending the EACUBO Annual Meeting in Buffalo, New York.  The conference brought together College and University business officers from throughout the Northeast with the goal of sharing new ideas regarding how institutions can meet the financial challenges of a quickly changing higher education landscape. Among the topics included were succession planning, sustainability, and risk mitigation.  A common underlying theme was how to use metrics and data analytics to support institutional efforts to make better decisions.  

Last week I had the privilege of attending the 2018 UNC Cause annual conference, which was held in Greenville, NC on October 1-3. UNC CAUSE was formed in 1970 by the computing centers of all 16 campuses in the University of North Carolina System. Its purpose? To promote cooperation and information exchange between the campuses of the UNC System in all areas related to information technology. 

Last week, we had the opportunity to attend the 74^th annual NACAC (National Association for College Admission Counseling) 2018 Conference in beautiful Salt Lake City, UT. The focus of the conference was connecting professionals who are tasked with creating the appropriate bridge for students to enroll in the right academic program for them, whether that is coming from high school, an adult who is embarking on their first time in college, or a returning adult. A lot of the talk around the conference floor was around how colleges can attract and retain the right students for them, the changing student demographic, and associated expectations of today’s students (and their parents.) The growing importance of the role of transfer students and the value of a college degree were also top of mind for most institutions.

If you wanted to predict how much corn would be sold at a farmer’s market stand this summer, you might ask multiple people to make educated guesses using different methods. One person might be a farmer who knows how the crops are doing in the region this year, one might be the person who has operated the stand for the past 3 years and has a good understanding of the seasonal purchasing patterns, and one might be a statistician with a table of the last 5 years’ of weekly sales.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Higher Education Data Warehouse (HEDW) Conference at Oregon State University with my  colleague, Joe Bertram. The conference brought together over 350 attendees from over 150 institutions. Whereas last year’s theme was “data governance,” this year’s was around “Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled analytics” and “machine learning.”  I wanted to spend some time discovering and learning how colleges and universities are tackling the data warehousing and data analytics initiatives at their respective institutions.   

As the landscape for institutional sustainability in higher education becomes more and more challenging to navigate successfully innovative institutions have increasingly turned to more rigorous, methodical, and data-centric approaches to understand the issues specific to their institution and how to address them. The availability of data in its rawest form has increased exponentially, and now include such sources as National Student Clearinghouse, Complete College America, and of course one of the earliest data repositories, IPEDS (The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System).

At the SalesForce Higher Education Summit in Washington, D.C., I had the great pleasure of listening to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and legendary aviator, test pilot, and astronaut, USMC Major General Charles Bolden deliver compelling keynotes. These, combined with many excellent presentations and demonstrations by trailblazing colleges and universities, impressed upon me the importance of being intentional in approaching institutional challenges. The term was applied to everything from ­­­­­­­­instilling cultural diversity to driving student success and retention. As I consider how universities implement and adopt technology and new business practices, the phrase “being intentional” very much aligns with the HelioCampus approach to institutional analytics in three specific ways: