1. HigherEdInfo.org Patrick Kelly, Matt Crellin NCHEMS

2. The Evolution of HigherEdInfo.orgHigherEdInfo.org What prompted the development of it? Response to “Measuring Up: The State-by-State Report Card for Higher Education” – providing more detail for diagnosing the grades states received. A recognition that states were focused heavily on internal institution-level comparisons with very little knowledge of the overall strengths and weaknesses of their higher education systems. As a result of above, states were developing policy in a vacuum – and borrowing policies from other states that had entirely different problems. SHEEO and related agencies were beginning to lose analytic capacity to pull the comparative data together from the variety of sources needed – because of the daily grind required to respond to legislative requests, federal reporting requirements, etc. With recent budget reductions and hiring freezes, some now are losing capacity altogether.

4. The Evolution of HigherEdInfo.orgHigherEdInfo.org Criteria for Its Development – Providing... State and sector-level comparative data for diagnosing the general strengths and weaknesses of the state’s higher education system. If policy attention is paid, where should it be directed? In most cases, performance-oriented measures as opposed to just volume of activity (often requiring data from multiple sources for a single measure). Visuals (maps and graphs) for quick interpretation of a state’s comparative position. Accessible data from publicly available sources that can be used for additional analyses (providing some additional capacity to target audiences). An easy-to-use interface. FREE

5. Site Objectives HigherEdInfo.org is designed to provide data and useable information to make sound policy decisions.  State-level, “performance-oriented” measures (in some cases by higher education sector and state counties). NOT institution-level data.  Designed to improve policymakers’ and analysts’ understanding of higher education data – within a conceptual framework that provides context for policymaking (identifying state strengths and weaknesses).  Guiding Principle: keep the information and measures found in HigherEdInfo.org purposefully simplified and finite in number.

6. The Response Fairly quick reach of its target audiences (within a couple years). These include SHEEO agencies, legislative researchers, institutional researchers, regional compacts, and national higher education organizations. Audiences have evolved to include the news media, grant writers, consulting firms, graduate students, and others. In recent years traffic has remained somewhat steady at roughly 20,000 unique users a month. We have continued to update and revise the site (within our capacity) based on continuous user feedback and a survey conducted back in 2006.

7. Brief Tour