In 2018, the EDUCAUSE Enterprise IT Program is examining the concept of next-generation enterprise IT. The fifth set of materials for that topic describes using analytics as a means to make better institutional decisions.
The 2018 focus for the EDUCAUSE Enterprise IT Program is preparing the institution for next-generation enterprise IT. (Read about our plan for the year.) As we prepare new resources for this topic, we publish them on the Enterprise IT Program web page. In our fifth set of resources for the year, we look at the opportunity presented by system implementations, integrations, and/or upgrades for IT leaders to help their institutions appreciate and understand the value of analytics and business intelligence to answer important institutional questions.
Next-generation enterprise IT is characterized by numerous interconnected systems organized to provide information in support of achieving an institution's vision. These systems are a mixture of on-premise and cloud-based technologies and must be unified to provide the analytics and services needed for unit and enterprise-level decisions. Whenever new systems are implemented or existing systems are interconnected or upgraded, you have the opportunity to improve your analytics maturity and advance progress on institutional strategies, goals, or objectives.
Two higher education functions are well placed to make an impact on improving institutional analytics maturity. IT and IR (Institutional Research) functions have the vantage point and likely many of the skills involved to drive analytics initiatives. Their cross-institutional views, analytically skilled staff, familiarity with organizational data and their functional interdependence provide many of the key success factors required to successfully complete these efforts.
IT and IR are often involved in both the development of institutional direction (including strategy and tactics, goals, and objectives) and the assessment of progress. As organizations work to set their direction, important questions arise and must be answered to best decide which opportunities to pursue and which to let go; which ongoing efforts to continue and which to stop; sources and uses of funds and how to best adjust these dollars; and much more. The answers to all these key institutional questions help craft a strategy to achieve an institution's vision.
Strategy and the supporting goals and objectives can only be effectively developed with clear and accurate answers to those key questions; decisions based on anecdotes or gut feelings need to be a thing of the past. IT and IR organizations are familiar with institutional data and have experience transforming those data into useful, clear visualizations and helping understand the information to make information-based decisions.
From these decisions, institutions can create initiatives, projects, and other efforts to move forward with their research, teaching, and service missions. IT and IR staff can help identify or create, implement or integrate, and facilitate the use of enterprise systems to assess the success of your hard work. This assessment will help you move further down the maturity path, and success will fuel additional analytics efforts.
Consider the following lessons:
- The current financial, political, and technical environment requires clear, focused direction and ongoing, timely, and accurate assessment of progress.
- Gut-level, outdated, or incomplete data and/or decisions based on anecdote must be replaced by accurate, up-to-date, information-based decision-making.
- Establishing and maturing the analytics and business intelligence facilitation of an information-based decision culture will take time, effort, and clear, high-level support.
- In many cases, the most effective path forward will involve carefully selecting an important institutional question (or two), locating willing participants, working hard to succeed, publicizing/communicating your success, and repeating these steps.
The Enterprise IT Program has collected resources to help you on your journey. A new web page dedicated to using systems integrations or implementations to help organizations make information-based decisions through improved analytics provides resources including the following:
- A set of case studies relating how IT and IR leaders at the University of Mississippi, Ithaca College, Oregon State University, and George Washington University are using enterprise system efforts to answer key questions to advance their strategies and make progress toward institutional objectives
- Member blogs from Bucknell University, University of the Pacific, and the University of Washington describing their efforts to move further down the analytics and business intelligence pathway
- Working group papers, articles from other members of the EDUCAUSE community, and more
Because such institutional effort are enterprise-wide, you will also find links to other professional organizations such as NACUBO (the National Association of College and University Business Officers) and AIR (the Association for Institutional Research).
We hope you find these new resources helpful. Send us your questions and your suggestions by email.
If you have a story to tell about your own institution's work in the area of next generation enterprise IT, or if you have suggestions or questions about the Enterprise IT Program, please contact Betsy Tippens Reinitz.
Andrew Clark is President of Andrew Clark & Associates and EDUCAUSE Consultant.
© 2018 Andrew Clark. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International License.