Big Data

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What is “big data”? Who’s doing it? Why is the higher education community so interested in it?

According to Wikipedia, “‘Big data’ is a term applied to data sets whose size is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, manage, and process the data within a tolerable elapsed time. Big data sizes are a constantly moving target, as of 2012 ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single data set.”

Currently, big data is most commonly used by businesses and will become the “key basis for competition,” according to the McKinsey Global Institute’s May 2011 report “Big Data: The Next Frontier for Innovation, Competition, and Productivity.” They point out five ways that big data can create value. And while this new abundance of data will help businesses make data-driven decisions and enhance target marketing of products to consumers by using data to identify pregnant women, for example (see “How Companies Learn Your Secrets,” New York Times, February 16, 2012), we are still in the early stages of data collection. While many are excited by the challenge of exploring and analyzing the abundance of collected data and applying it to improve daily interactions, others are leery of where this data explosion could lead. In “The Future of Big Data,” a recently published report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, experts provide varying viewpoints on the use of big data and the future. Businesses are the most enthusiastic in their use of big data, but the federal government is also jumping on the data train. The Obama administration has issued plans to dive into the big data pool with a $200 million initiative spanning six federal departments in the hopes of “improving our ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data, the initiative promises to help solve some the Nation’s most pressing challenges.” If the federal government can manage such massive data collections and successfully promote this undertaking, this should motivate other areas of society to take up the challenge of using large data sets to improve various industries and the lives of their consumers.

Higher education is just beginning to explore how to leverage the massive amounts of data it collects to improve the student experience. In his article “The Rise of Big Data,” Louis Soares explains that giving students an opportunity to see their data “in useful ways…can allow students to become better managers of their own educational experiences and can also, perhaps, improve collective outcomes across all of higher education.” Students are starting to see that data and use it to their advantage to keep themselves on track academically, as discussed in an EDUCAUSE 2011 session, “Course Signals: A Student Success System/Stoplights for Student Success.” As we find ourselves in a vast wonderland of data gathering and analyzing in higher education in the next few years, it will be exciting to see how big data can meet the promise of reducing institutional costs, increasing college affordability, and improving student retention and completion.

EDUCAUSE Staff Picks

“The Rise of Big Data in Higher Education,” EDUCAUSE Live!, March 2012

Understanding and Managing the Risks of Analytics in Higher Education: A Guide, EDUCAUSE, June 2012

“Scientific Research: How Many Paradigms?” EDUCAUE Review, June 2012

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EDUCAUSE Library Items for Big Data

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Big Data: Big Data True What is “big data”? Who’s doing it? W…
Privacy and the Connected Campus: May 21, 2013

As students, scholars, and administrators use today’s connected online tools , they leave behind a “ data exhaust ” that can reveal a surprisingly detailed picture of individual activi…
The Horizon Report in Action: Emerging Technologies Today and Tomorrow: March 27, 2013

Wondering what’s new in mobiles, electronic books, learning analytics , and other emerging technology areas? Join Malcolm Brown and Veronica Diaz of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative as t…
Ethics, Big Data, and Analytics: A Model for Application: May 6, 2013

The use of big data and analytics to predict student success presents unique ethical questions for higher education administrators relating to the nature of knowledge; in educatio…
Empowering Technology Research Support: University of Washington: February 1, 2013

The University of Washington Information Technology (UW-IT) department and UW’s eScience Institute have been charged with supporting the research community’s vast and sophisticated technolo…
Building Organizational Capacity for Analytics: February 25, 2013

Optimizing student success is the “killer app” for analytics in higher education . Intelligent investments in optimizing student success garner wide support and have a strong, justifia…
Campus Cyberinfrastructure and Big Data: April 17, 2013 | A session at the ACTI Annual Meeting
How will our campuses support big data, and how will we work with national data centers? Learn about how ACTI Campus Cyberinfrastructure Working Group is approaching this issue. …
Keynote Address: The Role of Core Technologies in Higher Education: April 16, 2013 | A session at the ACTI Annual Meeting
A look at current and future technology demands of faculty, students, and administration and how core technologies should change to keep up with the demand. …
Learning Sciences and Learning Analytics: Time for a Marriage - Sponsored by Starin: February 5, 2013 | A session at the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual Meeting
Over the past several decades, the interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences has developed a substantial body of theory, research, and design guidelines that can be leveraged for the emergin…
The Current and Future State of Higher Education: November 20, 2012

Although there may be disagreement about where higher education is headed, few will disagree that we are in a time of change, a time in which a unique set of challenges have emerged. How should w…

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