IT Metrics Constituent Group

Hello There,

New to this constituent group since the most recent Educause convention. I appreciated the discussion there. One item that was brought up in the discussion session was what Universities are using for Key Performance Indicators and what the data on the KPIs helps us achieve. Very interesting topic since we are looking at expanding our measures of self-evaluation on services provided.

Our department’s focus is centralized ERP solutions for three campuses (HRMS, FIN, ISIS, etc.). Currently we track Outage numbers against SLAs, issue tracking, desktop ticketing. Other items we are starting to track are number of projects implemented within a year, throughput of projects through the process versus those queuing up.

May I ask what you might use for KPI...

Hi all,

I’ve found LinkedIn to be a good place to collaborate, share, question, and answer topics of interest in the professional arena.  Metrics is no exception.  But, over the last year or so, the groups have been inundated with promotional ads disguised as discussion posts.  You can scroll through 20 posts and not find a legitimate discussion topic/post.  The metrics groups I used to recommend to others have been overrun by spammers.  In response, I of course, started a discussion about the problem.  The best advice I received in the discussion was to have either a closed group or a well-managed open group. 

So, I have created a new LinkedIn Group, specifically for metrics discussions: “Analytics, Metrics, and Data, oh my!”

Frequently it becomes necessary to evaluate and verify a potential vendors references as part of a formal solicitation or prior to engagement as a consultant.  I have found the typical reference check method to be a weak validation of a consultants competency.  What methods have you successfully used?  Have you hired a PI type to perform electronic snooping (data gathering) into a potential vendors financials, past performance, work load, successful projects (on time & w/in budget), staff qualifications, etc.?  We need better and maybe more sophisticated tools to help select our consulting partners.

Thank you for suggestions.  -  Scott Snedden, Senior Contracting Officer, University of Alaska

Hi All!

If you didn’t hear, Educause is conducting a “three-day sprint” on the topic of Analytics.  What that means is that for three days, Educause is hosting 1.5 hours of webinar where some successful uses of metrics are discussed/presented.  And then you go to Ideascale (a discussion board) to “discuss” analytics.  Today is the last day for the sprint…and so far everything I’ve seen and heard seems to point to “analytics” being another term for metrics. 

Educause’s working definition for analytics:  “…the use of data, statistical analysis, and explanatory and predictive models to gain insights and act on complex issues.”

I may be on an island here, but I don’t see...

Hello Metrics Fans,

As the new lead of the Core Data Service, my focus for the next several iterations of the survey will be to improve the metrics and benchmarking capabilities.  Currently, the survey is rich in content on many services.  Ultimately, I’d like to start defining metrics/KPIs for these services (possibly based on the standards the CEITPS develops) so that they can be included in the CDS. 

Wouldn’t it be great if you and all of your peers had a place to submit your standards-based metrics for specific services so that you could benchmark these metrics with your peers?  (Network Availability, for example) That’s the plan.

I recently identified the major services referenced in the CDS.  They are –

Thanks Kim for volunteering!  My answers follow your questions:

Hi Martin -

I would like to work on the unique users in public computer labs standard that I helped draft at EDUCAUSE.  I would prefer not to lead the team working on it - I'm still very new to metrics.  No problem.  We’ll just find someone else to lead the team.  Thanks for volunteering!

If we can volunteer to be on two teams, I would also like to be on the power utilization in data centers team because it sounds interesting. Definitely.  There’s no limit to the amount of teams you can work on, as long as you can produce, I’m sure the team lead will be happy to have you.    I know very little about power utilization in data centers, but I'm interested in sustainability and I can offer an uneducated...

Hi All!

We received a message from Educause about CG meetings at regional conferences…  We’re looking for volunteers to lead a CG session at each of the regionals.  We’re only expecting you to volunteer if you were already going to attend.

See below for details.  If you are interested, let us know,

Marty (for Leah and Mac)

The conferences are: