When It Comes to Innovation, Data is Everything

Forward-thinking institutions are prioritizing the use of data for more informed and strategic decision-making. According to the Business Application Research Center (BARC), an industry analyst and consulting firm, 69% of organizations that have embraced data also report better strategic decisions while 54% have improved control of operational processes, 52% say they have a better understanding of consumers, and 47% report cost reductions. When data is collected and connected, it enables you to achieve almost anything.

Colleges and universities have access to a wealth of data that can be harnessed to find efficiencies, implement successful enrollment strategies, and strengthen student experiences. Yet, a study published in Science Magazine, Data blind: Universities lag in capturing and exploiting data, found that “…universities lag behind industry, business, and government in deriving strategic value from their data resources.”

From Many to One

In a typical higher education enterprise, operations are siloed across the campus and, predictably, so is the data. On top of that, the common systems in higher education (such as the CRM, SIS, LMS, websites and ad platforms) have discrete functions and specific ways of capturing and using data.

The leap to data centralization is often hampered by strained technology resources or a lack of specialized expertise within in-house IT teams. As long as each department continues “business as usual,” no one can get a cohesive picture of the enrollment journey, the student experience, program performance, operational efficiency, and other mission-critical business intelligence.

To achieve the promise of data-informed decision-making, higher education institutions will need to consider solutions for integrating data from disparate platforms into a single repository and making it actionable to various institutional stakeholders. With the evolution of the cloud, it is now much easier and cost-effective to deploy a centralization strategy.

A Foundation in Data Enablement

There is no shortage of data within higher education. There are more applications than ever, and they are all generating data at a furious pace.

At the same time, schools are hungry for insights and have an urgent need for analytics to drive strategic outcomes like increasing student retention, ensuring student success, and boosting enrollment.

But here is the common dilemma in higher ed: When data is siloed across departments and systems, leaders are often reduced to using alternatives such as thumb drives and multi-tab spreadsheets to piece together a fractured view of the student journey. An APLU study found that campus leaders universally identified “data silos” as being a challenge for their institution’s data infrastructure.

The ability to collect and connect data housed across departments and functions can transform data into a strategic asset that impacts institutional success. Collegis has identified three barriers that must be overcome during the data enablement evolution:

• The school doesn’t collect the right data, the data is low-quality or incomplete, or there are critical gaps in their data (e.g., missing ZIP codes).
• The school has plenty of data, but it is siloed in disparate departmental systems and/or applications (e.g., LMS, SIS, CRM, CMS).
• Data may be connected, even if imperfectly or manually, but the school doesn’t have the tools or resources to generate value or take action.

Until all data is collected, normalized, equalized and connected, it cannot be activated to unleash its value as intelligence in data discovery.

Graduating to Data Discovery

Institutions that have connected and integrated their data sources into a single repository are ready to begin exploring and profiling their data. Data discovery is the process of making business intelligence accessible to institutional leaders and stakeholders. As a preferred Google Cloud partner, Collegis helps institutions gather business intelligence that delivers clear, actionable insights that can be applied to urgent challenges and institutional objectives.

• Every visit to a school’s website by a prospective student contains valuable information on session duration, pages per session and downloads, which can then be used to deliver personalized experiences. Personalization is shown to sway a student toward conversion in a way that bulk communications cannot.  
• Student retention is a priority, given enrollment trends. Signal detection can identify behavioral clues that a student may be at risk of transferring or failing to return next semester. Proactive alerts can push notifications directly to faculty and staff in time to intervene.
• The data-focused culture in business and government has driven up the demand from external funding sources for evidence of performance. That puts data for measurement and institutional reporting at the top of the list for information needs. 
• Institutional leaders focused on driving diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in higher education are depending on data and analytics to examine how various groups of stakeholders are impacted by institutional structures and policies.

Through data enablement, discovery and activation, colleges and universities can be empowered to make confident decisions on how to achieve strategic outcomes. But what if critical data about the institution is unavailable?

Ensuring Data Transparency

One hurdle to full data transparency — the availability of data to all stakeholders and decision-makers who need it — is that not all data systems are under the control of the university. In their effort to launch and grow their online programs, some colleges turned to online program management (OPM) providers. Today, there are over 600 online program management (OPM) partnerships in higher education, but an impending update to the U.S. Department of Education’s policy regarding tuition-sharing models for recruitment services is raising questions about the future viability of the OPM relationship.

On top of that, due to the nature of revenue-share contracts, an OPM company has no incentive to share its strategies and data (especially in marketing and admissions). Should a school’s relationship with their OPM end, they are not only left without the capabilities and expertise of their vendor, but also the infrastructure and data associated with recruiting pipelines, historical performance and marketing plans for launching and growing online programs.

For data transparency, a better approach is a fee-for-service model with a more strategic higher education services provider who can empower a school’s marketing and admissions teams to build their own processes, capture their own data and maximize their own potential for success.

This allows the institution complete access to data and intelligence to power growth strategies like identifying new audiences to broaden the student base, launching alternative certification programs to meet regional workforce needs, or implementing approaches that attract and enroll best-fit students.

Without a full picture of online program activity, schools may not know what tactics are driving performance. This prevents leadership from learning the operational and analytical nuances of operating at scale and understanding why certain decisions are made.

With an unbundled, fee-for-service relationship like Collegis offers, all data and capabilities are under institutional control and built on existing platforms, so they remain an ongoing source of insight and intelligence.

Taking the Lead on Data

While there is wide acceptance of the importance of data and the urgent need for analytics in higher education, many colleges and universities have yet to establish strong data management. One conclusion of Science Magazine’s “Data blind” study was that there is a “need for leadership that supports a panoramic view of the data infrastructure and policies at play.”

The 2022 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report® on Data and Analytics concludes that “In response to a convergence of social, political, and economic shifts threatening the stability and future of higher education, institutions increasingly rely on data and analytics as one solution for building their resilience against broader societal change. This reliance on data, however, requires extensive investments in institutions’ data infrastructures and governance, and meaningful engagement with data across the institution requires intentional and coordinated transformation in institutional culture and operations.”

Data is a strategic asset with a significant role to play in helping higher education leaders craft a sustainable future for their institutions. Data enablement, discovery and transparency must be a priority for all higher education leadership. But colleges don’t have to undertake that transformation alone.

To truly leverage data, you need an innovation enabler.  A combination thought partner and tactical pro. More consultative than an OPM.  More executional than a consultant.

The difference between partnering with us, versus others in our industry, is that we don’t sell you a prepackaged platform and product suite. Instead, we’re focused on helping you be more innovative. So, we’ve joined forces with a like-minded leader in using data and technology to enable you to pursue your goals — Google.

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This sponsored content was provided by Collegis Education and produced by Inside Higher Ed's sponsored content team. The editorial staff of Inside Higher Ed had no role in its preparation.