1. FIVE WAYS TO STRATEGICALLY USE DATA TO SHOWCASE INSTITUTIONAL SUCCESS
SCOTT OAKES, ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

2. LAST NIGHT...
YOU ME

3. ABOUT DIGITAL MEASURES
1999
founded
MILWAUKEE
headquarters
> 60 employees
130+ universities attended User Group 2017
3 OUT OF 5 TOP U.S.
universities
Founded in 1999; based in Milwaukee, WI
60+ employees; completely employee-owned
Our sole focus: FAR and workflow solutions for higher education
Clear market leader: more than 60% of largest 500 campuses in US
200+ university-wide clients
300,000+ faculty use Activity Insight
Users in more than 15 countries

4. ILLUMINATING FACULTY AND UNIVERSITY IMPACT
We believe faculty are doing great things.
Our goal is simple—helping you share stories of faculty success
Make it easy to capture essential faculty activity information to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time
Simplify inefficient processes and empower administrators to make better decisions, faster with trusted information

5. Community & University Service Dissertation Supervision
WHAT IS FACULTY ACTIVITY?
Academic Advising
Community & University Service
Editorships
Courses Taught
Publications
Presentations
Performances
Dissertation Supervision
Conference Chairs
Grants
And More...
Think of the different areas on your campus that could be useful to capture.
Capture it once, use it many times – infinitely
Primary uses are for annual review, promotion & tenure, accreditation (both regional and professional), faculty web profiles; also see many innovative uses to more generally help market and tell the story of your institution.
Telling stories – about faculty, departments, colleges and the whole university

6. FIVE THINGS DATA CAN DO FOR YOUR UNIVERSITY
Improve efficiency
Ease accreditation and other reporting
Increase data accuracy
Measure impact
Transform your university

7. IMPROVING EFFICIENCY IMAGINE!
Consider how many times people within your institution reach out to faculty and others for information—how often is this information similar to that which was requested before?

8. IMPROVING EFFICIENCY WITH PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Purdue’s College of Agriculture
Land-grant institutions have a specific mission to share their research with its state
Major stakeholder is the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) who invests in and supports initiatives, so they look to institutions to report on their programs and impacts
Previously used a system that produced reports, but didn’t reveal data.
Background and enter DM/AI

9. IMPROVING EFFICIENCY WITH PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Purdue’s College of Agriculture
Had critical customizations to produce the reports needed
Worked closely with their dedicated consultant to build reports that instantly revealed the necessary data in order to show their Extension efforts
Smart customizations start with report outcomes!
Learn more: dig.ms/Purdue
This is applicable for all schools no matter the reporting needs. Knowing what you need your data to tell you is the starting point for successful Activity Insight customization. Start with outcomes.

10. 2. EASING ACCREDITATION & OTHER REPORTING
Pull the same data into reports for a range of requirements without asking for information again from your department chairs or faculty.
Ensure that calculations are made the same way year over year, so your reports are not only easier to assemble—they’re also reliable.
Promote your process!
Reporting requirements for many stakeholders, from professional and regional accreditors to state legislatures and federal funding sources, continue to grow in complexity. And the bar for accuracy is high, as are the stakes—consider the cost of lost funding or failing to demonstrate compliance with an accrediting body.
To point 3: Most accrediting bodies are interested in knowing that you have a process in place. You can be dinged for not having a good process for gathering this information. (HLC, SACS, AACSB for sure; probably others as well). So having software that captures required data and calculates your reports is a big plus for process. Also, as mentioned, a big plus for faculty since they don’t have to provide this information multiple times.

11. 2. EASING ACCREDITATION WITH CAL STATE, LA
California State University, Los Angeles
One of 23 California State campuses and a large urban state school
College of Business & Economics (CBE) has 70 full-time and 100 adjunct faculty, with about 4,600 students
Competitive environment; other institutions with business schools and MBA programs in LA area
New university president and shift from quarters to semesters
Background

12. 2. EASING ACCREDITATION WITH CAL STATE, LA
California State University, Los Angeles
Hadn’t focused on AACSB since their last review, four years prior
Created a project team
Created categories for data collection within Activity Insight and worked with our developers to develop exact screens needed to capture information
Including faculty in the project was key!
Learn more: dig.ms/calstatela
How they used AI to receive the AACSB accreditation
Involving faculty ensured data was clean, and then they were able to build out CVs from the data and use this information in their annual reviews with incentives.

13. 3. INCREASING DATA ACCURACY
Accuracy: Depends entirely on correctly and completely entering data
3. INCREASING DATA ACCURACY
Currency: How up-to-date your data is and how current your reports are that use this data in the system
Consistency (in data collection): All activities of a certain type are entered the same way, in a single source field and can be consistently extracted to feed any report
Completeness: Whether data needed to feed your reports is present in the system
Use existing data systems. One client recently imported 21,562 publication citations
Time savings here is obvious, but the hidden benefit is improved accuracy
data integrations here as well.
With imports from Web of Science, Scopus, Crossref, PubMed, etc., Imports from these sources are far more likely to be accurate than hand entries by faculty or proxies.

14. 4. MEASURING IMPACT What is your institution doing?
What data would help you measure and evaluate this across your institution?
What difference does it make for students, the university and the community?
Consider how to demonstrate impact as it relates to strategic plan
-Once you have the data, consider the areas you could demonstrate (strategic plan, accreditation, diversity)
-Knowing how you want to track progress drives data collection needs, report requirements (Reporting for difference that funding sources made)

15. 4. MEASURING IMPACT WITH NORTH DAKOTA STATE
North Dakota State University wanted to:
Focus on managing and measuring the impact of faculty contributions
Relate the impact back to their college and university mission
Develop three key takeaways to do so:
Start with key guiding questions
Document how you will define impact
Determine how to collect and report impact results
Learn more: dig.ms/ndsu
They needed to show all of their stakeholders they were making a positive impact in business and society. So they used Activity Insight to capture impact information and also provide it to the leadership of the college so they can make confident decisions.

16. 5. TRANSFORM YOUR UNIVERSITY
Data alone won’t transform an institution
Data is only good as the consideration given to what you want to learn from your data
Fayetteville State University’s transformation

17. 5. TRANSFORM YOUR UNIVERSITY: FAYETTEVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY
During 2008 economic recession, FSU lost 22 percent of its state funding and cut 150 faculty positions
Public scrutiny of costs and benefits of the University of North Carolina system
Needed to improve degree of productivity on a substantially reduced budget
Used information in Activity Insight to increase productivity from 15% to 21% between 2008 and 2015.
Earned the American Council on Education (ACE) Award for Institutional Transformation in 2016
Learn more: dig.ms/fsu

18. 5. TRANSFORM YOUR UNIVERSITY
Ask yourself the critical questions
What decisions is your institution making?
What data would best inform those decisions?
What answers does your university require?
Are you telling your university’s story in a compelling way?
Consider these questions from perspective of a stakeholder

19. Scott Oakes: soakes@digitalmeasures.com
THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS & CONTACT
Scott Oakes:
E-Book: dig.ms/5Things
You can download the e-book via the short link above.