COLLEGE PARK, MD — Leaders and representatives from 81 colleges and university systems gathered for Achieving the Dream’s (ATD) fourth annual Data and Analytics Summit to learn best practices for analyzing and utilizing student data to better inform institutional practices and policies.
Centering around the theme “Mind the Data Gap,” ATD presenters and officials shared lessons on how to build institutional capacity on data literacy and emphasized the necessity of using student data efficiently to “tell a story” in order to improve every students’ post-secondary experience and outcomes.
“It’s clear that most of our colleges don’t have a clear data strategy,” said Dr. Karen A. Stout, president and CEO of ATD, in an opening keynote address. “Without that strategy, you can’t really leverage your data.”
Data should be used to inform decision-making on student success initiatives, Stout said, adding that, very often, institutional data plans “are not connected to advancing the student success agenda.”
ATD analyses showed that institutions use less than one percent of their structured student data. More than 70 percent of employees have access to data they should not have. Further, 80 percent of a data analyst’s time is spent discovering and preparing data, instead of analyzing it to influence the college’s student success strategy, Stout added.
Stout highlighted “The Elements of Data Strategy” — a framework created by Dr. Thomas H. Davenport, professor of information technology and management at Babson College — as a rubric for institutions to pair their data analytics with their strategic agenda for student success.
Davenport’s rubric identifies “defense” and “offense” data strategies.
