Educause Assessment Tool Gauges Institutional Analytics Capabilities

Educause has created a new self-assessment tool to help colleges and universities better understand how their analytics capabilities can enhance teaching and learning practices, improve student outcomes and advance institutional goals. The 26-question survey provides a rubric to define an institution's current analytics capabilities (as opposed to future goals) and serve as a baseline for further discussion.

The assessment walks the survey-taker through five "capability categories": Workforce; Data Governance; Data Management; Leadership; and Data-Informed Culture.

  • Workforce speaks to institutional culture around data literacy, staffing of analytics-related roles, and overall communication and collaboration;
  • Data Governance covers standardization of data sources, data definitions, policies and practices supporting good data stewardship;
  • Data Management encompasses infrastructure, digital ethics and data integration;
  • Leadership speaks to how institutional leaders understand and prioritize data analytics on a strategic level; and
  • Data-Informed Culture assesses the use of analytics for decision-making, cross-institutional collaboration, change management and commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Upon completing the assessment, institutions receive a copy of the responses via e-mail, which can be shared internally as desired.

"Analytics is a powerful tool that colleges and universities are embracing to advance student success initiatives, improve quality and efficiency, and enhance teaching, learning and research," said Betsy Reinitz, director of enterprise IT programs at Educause, in a statement. "Using analytics to inform decision-making in those areas is more important now than ever before as institutions continue to adapt to changes brought by the pandemic."

The tool is available to Educause members here.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Three cubes of noticeably increasing sizes are arranged in a straight row on a subtle abstract background

    A Sense of Scale

    Gardner Campbell explores the notion of scale in education and shares some of his own experience "playing with scale" — scaling up and/or scaling down — in an English course at VCU.

  • AI-inspired background pattern with geometric shapes and fine lines in muted blue and gray on a dark background

    IBM Releases Granite 3.0 Family of Advanced AI Models

    IBM has introduced its most advanced family of AI models to date, Granite 3.0, at its annual TechXchange event. The new models were developed to provide a combination of performance, flexibility, and autonomy that outperforms or matches similarly sized models from leading providers on a range of benchmarks.

  • minimalist bookcase filled with textbooks featuring vibrant, solid-colored spines with no text, and a prominent number "25" displayed on one of the shelves

    OpenStax Celebrates 25th Anniversary

    OpenStax is celebrating its 25th anniversary as 2024 comes to a close. The open educational resources initiative from Rice University has served almost 37 million students in 153 countries and saved students nearly $3 billion in course material costs since its launch in 1999.

  • a professional worker in business casual attire interacting with a large screen displaying a generative AI interface in a modern office

    Study: Generative AI Could Inhibit Critical Thinking

    A new study on how knowledge workers engage in critical thinking found that workers with higher confidence in generative AI technology tend to employ less critical thinking to AI-generated outputs than workers with higher confidence in personal skills.