Expanding Analytics Capabilities and Improving Campus Data Use at Utah Tech University
Utah Tech University (UTU) is a public open-enrollment university with over 11,000 students, three-quarters of whom are from Utah. At UTU, 84% of students receive scholarships, grants, or other financial aid, and 85% of graduates are employed out of college.
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Challenge
Before their partnership with EAB, institutional research at UTU was largely compliance-driven. Data management and governance were siloed, leading to inconsistent data accuracy and widespread frustration. UTU set out to become a more data-informed organization, appointing Jason Browning to a new cabinet-level Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness position.
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Solution
UTU partnered with EAB to implement Edify, an education data platform, as a data management platform to organize data and facilitate access to reliable information. In addition to implementing the Edify platform on campus, Jason’s team also implemented data governance best practices with EAB’s guidance, building the culture and technical infrastructure to support data-informed decisions.
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Impact
UTU’s student data now flows through Edify, and other data sources are being integrated into the platform (e.g., HR, finance). By connecting Edify to Tableau and RStudio, Jason’s team is growing UTU’s analytical capacity, shifting from an environment of snapshots and manually-updated data to interactive visualizations and analyses that can automatically update as data is refreshed.
We’re building out something so robust. Edify represents a culture shift toward data being accessible to all.
Jason Browning
Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness
Existing Data Efforts Fall Short
Ineffective Processes Lead to Inconsistent Data and Widespread Frustration
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Limited Data Access
Data teams encounter difficulties when trying to extract data out of complex campus systems.
Ex: “What is SFRSTCR?”
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Limited Data Governance
Ineffective business processes lead to data of varying quality being entered into systems.
Ex: “Those aren’t my numbers…”
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Limited Resources
UTU doesn’t have the staff or budget to build new data systems themselves. Data teams’ increased responsibilities contribute to a backlog of requests.
Ex: “It took a year to get that report!”
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Pursuing a Better Way
UTU’s president created a cabinet-level position for institutional effectiveness to guide the University’s transformation into a data-informed organization.
Creating an Accessible & Aggregated Data Set
In addition to creating a central data repository, UTU recognized that to truly improve data use across campus, they also needed to make data more accessible to end-users.
Using Edify’s Quad model, UTU is aggregating data from across their siloed environments and translating them into common-language definitions, markedly reducing the need for joins across multiple tables or systems.
Powering Visualization and Analytic Capabilities with Edify
Progress and vision of the Edify-Utah Tech University partnership
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Results so far
A single source of truth:
- UTU Banner Student and Slate admissions data is flowing into Edify
- Data lives in PostgreSQL and connects to UTU’s data tools-Tableau and RStudio
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Near-term roadmap
More data, more connections:
- Enter HR, finance, LMS, and other data in Edify
- Conduct higher-order analyses across all lines of business to surface efficiency opportunities
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Future vision
Powering a data-informed campus:
- Provide validated data across campus
- Enable leaders to make truly data-informed decisions, improving resource allocation and student progress