AIRE Newsletter: September 2023
Dear colleagues –
I am delighted to share the first edition of a new quarterly newsletter from KU’s Analytics, Institutional Research, and Effectiveness (AIRE) unit.
These newsletters respond to a common refrain – given the large volume of data at KU, it’s overwhelming to keep track of it all. As decision makers, you have access to dashboards covering student, HR, financial, and research data, as well as the results from key campus constituent surveys and data in a variety of other tools. It’s a lot. In each newsletter, we hope to make this bounty of information easier to navigate by highlighting the data and tools we have available and noting important changes to look out for in one place.
In tandem with our heightened communication, AIRE is also working on a new strategic plan and a revamped website as we align our mission with Jayhawks Rising. A key goal is to map the functions and services offered by AIRE more clearly so that campus partners have an easy reference guide when seeking the information and tools they need. We’re at the start of this process, but since AIRE has experienced several transitions in recent years, I did want to share our current organizational chart.
AIRE's mission is to provide the university with engaging institutional information to advance strategic aims and promote effectiveness. I hope that through increased communication, we help make it easier for you to access the data you need.
Please do forward this email to data-using colleagues in your units. We will also make these newsletters available on our website.
Very best wishes,
Corinne Bannon
Chief Data Officer and Vice Provost of AIRE
Official Enrollment Counts
The Kansas Board of Regents requires that enrollment figures must not be shared by Regent’s institutions publicly before the KBOR official press release. The KBOR press release is currently scheduled for September 27. AIRE captures KU’s official enrollment counts just after midnight on the 20th day of classes, also known as census day. This year, the 20th day of classes is September 18. Please do not share enrollment figures publicly until after the KBOR press release.
Receive announcements related to census days and updates to data dashboards in OAC by signing-up to the OAC Academic User Group
Jayhawks Rising and a Strategic Alignment Calendar
On August 15, AIRE partnered with the Provost's Office to coordinate and facilitate the first day of the Provost's leadership retreat. The retreat allowed leaders to review progress and prioritize recommendations for the Jayhawks Rising strategies for the current year. These will be shared with the campus in early fall via the Jayhawks Rising website.
To aid you with keeping track of the key operational activities for KU Lawrence and Edwards through the year, we’ve created the Annual Strategic Alignment Calendar for FY 2024, which includes activities that inform our strategic plan.
Data Quality and Governance
Henry Hinkle started as our new Data Quality and Governance Manager in July 2023. Henry will partner with stakeholders and subject matter experts to develop institutional standards for data quality, documentation, and literacy. This is a large undertaking. Over the next few months, Henry will be busy mapping existing data infrastructure, identifying and meting with key data leaders, and convening the Executive Data Council.
Campus Constituent Surveys
Over the past 18 months, AIRE partnered with the Provost’s Office, University Governance and stakeholders from across KU to enhance our campus constituent survey process. A key focus has been improving campus engagement through forums to discuss survey results and create actionable recommendations. Recommendation reports for surveys covering faculty and staff job satisfaction are available on the AIRE website:
Faculty: COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Recommendations Report
Staff: Docking Institute Staff Satisfaction Survey Recommendations Report.
Staff leaders will share recommendations from this report during a public forum on September 21, 2-3pm, in Watson Library 3 West Reading Room. Full details of the forum are in this campus-wide announcement.
Spring 2024 Surveys
National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) - undergraduate students
Great Colleges to Work For - staff and faculty
AIRE Open Labs
Our Data Analytics team are hosting Open Labs on the first Thursday of each month through the fall semester in Watson Library. The aim of these labs is to answer questions and provide hands-on training related to enterprise-wide reports in OAC and Visual Analytics and OAC report-building functionality for campus users. To best address your needs, we encourage you to fill out a brief (optional) survey prior to attending.
Fall Schedule
Oct 5, 3:00-4:30
Nov 2, 3:00-4:30
Dec 7, 3:00-4:30
Student Surveys of Teaching
Student Surveys of Teaching data for summer instructors is now available in your Qualtrics SST dashboard.
Student Surveys of Teaching will be distributed to all full-length fall courses on November 20. They will close at the end of the day on December 8.
The Student Surveys of Teaching unit leader dashboard will look a little different at the end of the fall semester. We are replacing the dashboard with a static report that will deliver this data directly to unit leaders. We anticipate this will be more efficient and accurate and improve the usage experience of the unit leaders. We'll share more information later in the fall.
Academic Analytics
The 2022 benchmarking database will be released in October. The benchmarking database feeds the Academic Analytics Benchmarking tool, which provides academic unit leaders with comparative research productivity data based on discipline-specific weighting of activities up to the end of 2022. VP and Dean-level users can view comparative data for all units at KU; Heads of Departments can view comparative data for their department and programs only. All users will receive notification from Academic Analytics when the database is live.
We also wanted to extend our thanks to all the Deans who reviewed the roster of faculty to include in the 2022 benchmarking database prior to submission. This additional review will ensure our departments and PhD programs are represented as accurately as possible.
If you have questions about the Academic Analytics tools or would like a refresher on using them please do let us know.
Campus Visit
Academic Analytics will be on campus on October 30 and 31. We are working on the schedule with our partners in Faculty Affairs and we will share an agenda closer to the event.