Having access to accurate and reliable data is essential in decision-making. A wealth of data is spread across the University of Delaware (UD). These data include, but are not limited to, financial information, budget information, student enrollment, credit hours taught, and numerous metrics about faculty, staff, and sponsored programs. These data…

The purpose of this article is to discuss the innovation and development of university education management informationization construction in the context of big data. Through a comprehensive comparison of innovative and traditional university education management information systems, it reveals the advantages of the innovative model in terms of…

Although familiar in business, the chief data officer position is a relatively new addition to the higher education landscape. As the role is introduced in colleges and universities, it is important to consider the additional challenges that exist within institutions and the higher education sector. Using a qualitative phenomenological approach,…

In this article Philip Henry, now in semi-retirement, reflects on the last 50 years of his career in United Kingdom higher education and the changes that ensued during this time. Over the span of his career he had the opportunity to experience a wide range of institutions in all of the U.K. university mission groups and in a range of positions…

Tarrant County College's Achieving the Dream transformation has not only changed the college but all who engaged in the initiative. In four years, through ATD TCC became a college with one purpose, one goal, and one focus--student success through data informed decision making. From TCC Chancellor Dr. Erma Johnson Hadley to campus administrators,…

For years, faculty members have pointed to the sluggish growth in the number of tenured professors and complained that university payrolls are filled with too many administrators. This, they maintain, adds unnecessary costs and takes the focus away from teaching and learning. But whether such "administrative bloat" is really occurring and how much…

The contemporary English policy discourse in higher education of "Putting Students at the Heart of the System" has led to an increasing use of managing by performance "smart-data" reinforcing a consumer-led representation of students as "partners" in the "business of learning" within the academy. This…

Each year, millions of Americans enroll in community colleges, seeking to develop the skills necessary to pursue a career or to transfer to a four-year institution. Community colleges serve large proportions of nontraditional, low-income, and minority students, and they are designed to provide access to a postsecondary education at a low or…

Most universities use Information Systems (IS) to perform their daily administrative activities (student enrollment, data files, accountancy, etc.), and an integrated Learning Management System (LMS) to support teaching and learning. However, although a lot of effort has been put into deploying these computerized systems, the data that they…

Data-driven decision making, popularized in the 1980s and 1990s, is evolving into a vastly more sophisticated concept known as big data that relies on software approaches generally referred to as analytics. Big data and analytics for instructional applications are in their infancy and will take a few years to mature, although their presence is…

Recent leadership failures at a couple of major public universities suggest that we should revisit the question of how colleges and universities should be governed. This article presents the authors' views on the leadership roles of trustees, presidents, and faculty. They describe how those roles can be effectively played and point out some of the…

Colleges and universities should be among the world's leading institutions in the field of data governance. After all, higher education institutions are dedicated to the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Why, then, do those who work in colleges and universities often have so much difficulty corralling information about their own operations…

Student movement between institutions can no longer be deemed atypical. Approximately one-third of all students transfer during their college career and of those who transfer, 25% will transfer more than once. While movement from two-year to four-year institutions is still the most prevalent transfer pathway, it is important to note that 43% of…

The authors describe the University of Central Florida's top-down/bottom-up action analytics approach to using data to inform decision-making at the University of Central Florida. The top-down approach utilizes information about programs, modalities, and college implementation of Web initiatives. The bottom-up approach continuously monitors…

This study is an examination of the state of the liberal arts curriculum in community colleges in three geographic regions of the United States. From a constructivist paradigm and using globalization theory as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study examined faculty work life and administrative processes related to curriculum change in…