Professional and Support Staff in Higher Education: Data and Decisions

This chapter provides advice on using data to guide decisions within Higher Education settings. It discusses the current debate around research data collection and use in universities and draws upon the Leiden Manifesto to provide advice pertaining to these issues.It discusses why administrative staff need to understand data usage in their institutions. It defines data usage broadly, as covering all major tasks that staff engage in when handling spreadsheets. It argues that without a broad understanding of how to collate and handle data, staff are at risk of not fully understanding the data that they are working with.It argues that data must be presented well for people to be able to make full use of it. To do this, it presents several examples, as well as points toward resources where readers can investigate data visualization further.Finally, it explores the consequent requirement for universities to provide better training for staff in all aspects of data use. It looks at Research Bazaar as a novel and compelling model for providing face-to-face technical training in an engaging and supportive way