Documents Contributed by ECAR and Decision Support Systems

This study, designed and analyzed by ECAR on behalf of the Council of Higher Education Management Associations (CHEMA), identifies the forces of change that are building for higher education and seeks to understand their potential implications. The report adds the voice of higher education's administrative leadership to the dialogue about the future of our institutions. Sponsored by 22 CHEMA member associations, the study examines how administrators and officials engaged in college and university support functions anticipate that higher education will change over the next ten years by identifying the changes, opportunities, and threats these leaders foresee for higher education, for their institutions, and for specific functional areas. In addition, the study discusses how prepared institutions are to manage change and shape their own futures.

Since the 1980s, higher education has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on administrative technologies to improve access to information. Institutions implemented new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, data marts, data warehouses, and technologies to improve reporting. This study analyzes the outcomes at more than 380 higher education institutions. It looks at what the chosen strategies have accomplished, in what ways institutions use the data they collect, whether institutions are investing more resources in tools that enable them to collect and manipulate management information, and the degree to which information and analysis are being used to support institutional decision making. A corporate edition is available here.

These Key Findings describe the major discoveries of the ECAR research study called "Academic Analytics: The Uses of Management Information and Technology in Higher Education". Since the 1980s, higher education has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on administrative technologies to improve access to information. Institutions implemented new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, data marts, data warehouses, and technologies to improve reporting. This study analyzes the outcomes at more than 380 higher education institutions. It looks at what the chosen strategies have accomplished, in what ways institutions use the data they collect, whether institutions are investing more resources in tools that enable them to collect and manipulate management information, and the degree to which information and analysis are being used to support institutional decision making.

Since the 1980s, higher education has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on administrative technologies to improve access to information. Institutions implemented new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, data marts, data warehouses, and technologies to improve reporting. This roadmap analyzes the outcomes at more than 380 higher education institutions. It looks at what the chosen strategies have accomplished, in what ways institutions use the data they collect, whether institutions are investing more resources in tools that enable them to collect and manipulate management information, and the degree to which information and analysis are being used to support institutional decision making.

This case study illustrates how UCSD has accomplished a significant business process redesign through Sponsored Project Excellence Achieved through Redesign (SPEAR), a project in research and grants management. The case study describes the development and implementation of that project, as well as presenting UCSD's efforts with business analytics. Innovative tools including balanced scorecards, dashboards, and other business applications support these initiatives through changes in technology and shifts in administrative organization.

This case study examines how developing a data-driven decision-making environment through academic analytics has challenged the University of Phoenix throughout its central and campus organizations. It describes some of the issues involved in moving from the collection of data to the ultimate use of that data. Through overviews and very specific examples, the complex Phoenix structures and processes provide examples of academic analytics at unit and institutional levels.

The February 2005 ECAR survey instrument used for ECAR Research Study on Reporting, Modeling, Analysis, and Decision Support in Higher Education.

This research bulletin demonstrates how knowledge management (KM), a human-centered approach to the integration of information systems within organizations, can be used to examine the overlapping and ongoing relationships among people, processes, and technology systems. KM enables institutions to gain a more comprehensive, integrative, and reflexive view of the impact of information technologies by understanding the cross-functional organizational obstacles regarding information use and access—ultimately leading to improved knowledge sharing and more effective decision making.

This bulletin illustrates how to harness technology to make evaluating student learning and development meaningful to both the expert measuring the intended result and to the decision maker who must inform policy. The bulletin discusses how technology can assist with mapping student learning to values that are meaningful to instructors and specialists, as well as to institutional, state, and federal administrators. By mapping values, articulated as intended outcomes, and by gathering meaningful data that can be linked to standards used to inform decisions and recommendations for continuous improvement, expert-driven assessment can influence state and national policies.

Digital dashboards make it possible to keep or create up-to-date, critical information within easy reach of decision makers. Dashboards also enable the graphical presentation of complex institution information. This research bulletin describes how dashboards support strategic thinking and decision making in higher education, where and how they are being used, and what it takes to build them. Included are specific examples and illustrations of dashboards currently being used by university executives, faculty, principal investigators, and academic department managers at the University of California, San Diego.