We Love Your Data! A Report from the IPEDS Help Desk Jamie Isaac & Janice Kelly-Reid RTI International April 16, 2008 Presented at the 2008 SHEEO/NCES Network Conference and IPEDS Workshop Arlington, VA 3040 Cornwallis Road ■ P.O. Box 12194 ■ Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA 27709

IPEDS Help Desk - Operated since July 2000 by RTI International - Help Desk agents are specially hired and trained to serve IPEDS customers - Open weekdays 8:30am to 5:00pm Eastern time - Open evenings and weekends during the final ten days of each collection

What is the Role of the Help Desk? Typically, we have 16-18 staff, many of them seasoned veterans. We operate out of our Call Center in north Raleigh, NC. Respond to phone calls and emails. Make prompting (reminder) calls during the last 2 weeks of each collection. Review and migrate all survey data after locked and complete. At minimum, this means careful review of the edit reports and caveats. We can enter “special notes” for individual schools, so let us know if special treatment is needed for a particular reason.

Meet the Help Desk

Help Desk Activity

Help Desk Activity – 2007-08 Collection Year *Through April 9, 2008

Inbound Call volume Projected Collection Year *Through April 9, 2008

Outbound Call volume Projected Collection Year *Through April 9, 2008

New Activities

Targeting Help Desk Resources During the past year, we’ve been gathering some data to help us better understand who the Help Desk users are, how many keyholders are new to IPEDS, and which institutions require the most reminder calls. Additional training resources targeted to new keyholders. Future plans are to conduct reminder calls targeted to new users (and historically late respondents).

Keyholder Turnover, 2007-08 New Keyholder (Existing School) New Keyholder (New School) No Change in Keyholder

Inbound Help Desk Calls, by Sector

Outbound (Primarily Reminder) Calls, by Sector

Late Data Submission

Last Minute Submissions Everyone submitted their data really early this year! Just kidding… During the final week of each collection, there continues to be an extremely heavy burden on the collection system. Notes: We are constantly reminded by keyholders that they have to wait to get the data from various people, they are busy with many tasks, etc., so be sure not to use the term “procrastination” because surely some audience members will be offended by the allegation.

Last Week Submissions

Data Tools Help Desk

What is the Role of the Data Tools Help Desk? Opened on March 5, 2007. Currently, 2-3 staff working as needed, responding to phone calls and emails. Assists IPEDS users and others by familiarizing them with the IPEDS data tools and/or assisting with outputting data files. Includes the following tools & resources: Peer Analysis System (PAS) Executive Peer Tool (ExPT) College Navigator Data Analysis System (DAS) Other NCES data sources and publications

Data Tools Help Desk 3/5/07 – 4/12/07 35-40 inquiries per week, on average Source of inquiries: Phone- 66% Emails- 34% Average call duration: 11.5 minutes For calls needing additional research, average time spent per request: 26 minutes

Data Tools Help Desk 3/5/07 – 4/12/07 Inquiries by Data Tool

Examples of the kinds of help we have provided recently Didn’t understand why there are different levels to log-in; needed help with basic navigation. Needed help understanding how to use qualifying variables. Wanted to know how to generate calculated variables across multiple institutions (in order to determine grad rate averages by sector). Didn’t understand how to create a comparison group by variable. Wanted to create a list of institutions with a similar allied health program, with enrollment totals over past several years. Needed help calculating ratios for sub-groups of faculty compared to all faculty. What questions can we help YOU with?

Thank you for your assistance in making IPEDS successful! In Closing… Thank you for your assistance in making IPEDS successful! …and finally…. As usual, we have a gift of appreciation… which will help you remember how to contact us!