We Built This House on Data: Building Infrastructure and Culture Around Data Access and Usage
Concurrent Session 5
Brief Abstract
You can’t fix what you can’t see. This overwhelming truth impacts success throughout education, and having data is different than using data. Learn how we built dynamic data structures that increased data use and helped inform decision-making to move the dial on student success.
Extended Abstract
While many institutions have overwhelming amounts of data, much of the data available to stakeholders goes unused on a daily basis. Furthermore, the departments and strategic initiatives that are needed to move the dial on student success and outcomes are typically influenced by multiple variables from a variety of data sources. The task of aggregating these disparate sources of data is one that is exceptionally time consuming, creating inefficiencies and delays in data access/processing, which pulls team members away from their key responsibilities.
To transition from data monitoring to realt-time data intervention and decision-making, we had to do the following:
- Ask the questions: What do we want to do? What do we want to solve? What do we need to see to make change?
- Build for action by identifying what data was needed to support teams on a daily-basis
- Identify the key and necessary data sources to support strategies, departments, decisions, and interventions
- Identify data obstacles in access or absence
- Identify different stakeholder groups/users
- Build dynamic dashboards for specific tasks and purposes rather then large data repositories
- Create opportunity to pivot and adjust as new needs are identified
In this session, we will explore the process of transitioning from data as a monitoring tool to data as the infrastructure for real-time action, intervention, and decision-making. We will also discuss the process of changing the mindset and usage of stakeholders across an organization.