2012 ECAR Study of Analytics in Higher Education

Key Findings

• Analytics is widely viewed as important, but data use at most institutions is still limited to reporting.
• Analytics programs are most successful when various constituents—IR, IT, functional leaders, and executives—work in partnership.
• Where analytics is concerned, investment is the area in which higher education institutions are making the least progress.
• Institutions should focus their investments on expertise, process, and policies before acquiring new tools or collecting additional data.
• Institutions that have made more progress in Investment, Culture/Process, Data/Reporting/Tools, Expertise, and Governance/Infrastructure are more likely to use data to make predictions or projections or to trigger action in a variety of areas.

Getting Started with Analytics Videos: Words of Wisdom from the Experts

Select the links below to view excerpts from video interviews:

• Tristan Denley, How Can Analytics Help Students Make Informed Choices?
• Paige Borden, What Can an Institution Do to Ensure the Success of an Analytics Program?
• Sally Johnstone, What Can Traditional Institutions Learn from Nontraditional Institutions About Analytics?
• Jerry Grochow, The DON'Ts of Analytics

Related Resources

• IT Infrastructure to Support Analytics: Laying the Groundwork for Institutional Analytics by Jerrold M. Grochow, ECAR Research Bulletin, October 2012
• Building Organizational Capacity for Analytics, by Donald M. Norris and Linda L. Baer, Report, February 2013.