Creating a Data-Informed Culture

Data. Like a thread woven through every discussion, that four letter word appears in everything from the news to our board meetings to our strategic plans to our accreditor’s reports. In fact, four letters do not adequately describe the depth and breadth of the era we live in, so we need two more consonants and a vowel: BIG data. Couple that with words like “data-driven,” “dashboards,” and “predictive analytics,” and you have a representative sample of the current buzzwords that are swarming our emails, committees, and even our hallway conversations. In this era of “doing more with less,” institutions are searching for operational efficiencies and predictors to increase enrollment and retention, reduce cost, ensure students graduate, and improve the learning experience. Finding those efficiencies, evaluating their effectiveness, and then implementing those changes requires data.