The Democratization of Data in Higher Education: A Case Study of the Challenges that Institutions Face as They Seek to Improve Student Success

In the current climate of increased external accountability and increased internal pressure to improve student performance, many colleges and universities are grappling with how to broaden access to data and information so as to improve decision-making -- a trend this report refers to as the democratization of data. In the past decade, advances in user-friendly information technology are enabling faculty, administrators, and staff to retrieve and analyze a host of information themselves, right from their desktops. For example, they can perform data searches, track student performance, monitor section enrollments in real-time, and estimate various budgetary impacts. By equipping people at all organizational levels with the data and information they need, colleges can enable them to make better decisions about how to reach and serve students. Colleges and universities are finding, however, that the democratization of data brings with it cultural as well as technical or procedural transformations. For example, it requires having departments work together to agree upon the kinds of information to track and to whom to make it available; changing channels of information flow; rewarding efforts to share information and knowledge rather than hoard it; being transparent about budgetary impacts; and valuing a culture of inquiry that identifies areas for improvement and supports analysis that pursues real change over time. Given the robust technological capabilities now available, colleges and universities that seek to understand and improve their rates of student success will inevitably confront, either deliberately or unwittingly, their own institutional practices and attitudes concerning access to and use of data. This report, in describing some of the major challenges that one higher education institution faced as it reconsidered its use of data and information in decision-making, outlines an investigative process to consider when seeking to improve student success and organizational effectiveness through the democratization of data. The report presents findings and identifies several important policy implications, at the campus and state levels, that could improve student outcomes by enhancing the use of data and information in decision-making

Turning Data into Decisions

While most institutions have data-based information systems in place, some fail to share and use data and information effectively, which often leads to missed opportunities in planning and forecasting and in day-to-day decision making. Reasons for the failure include: 1) the lack of integration among information systems, 2) unclear priorities in the collection of data, and 3) the creation of data silos that prevent the necessary links between functions and structures across the institution. This report looks at how business officers can encourage the collection and use of institutional data across campus functions

A Tale of Two Colleges

This story of two community colleges tells how they have dealt with the demands for data that state-mandated accountability requires. The story is based on research conducted at a large community college district in California. On the surface, the story might seem straightforward: accountability mandates led to the expansion of the Institutional Research Department, causing the schools to try to replace an outdated Student Information System in order to improve the district's overall access to data. However, the underlying story is more complicated. If it had a headline, it might be one of these: Why can't we get the data we need? A new system? What system? Is access to data really that important? This story looks at the community college district on multiple levels, weaving together anecdotes and experiences along with the underlying themes and tensions. It is an attempt to look at one component of the educational environment -- the one that links state policy-makers to the schools they oversee -- tracing the drive toward accountability through to its consequences in practice

Curriki: Facilitating Use and User Engagement Around Open Educational Resources

Through interviews with the Curriki management team, analysis of internal documents,observations of internal user data collection practices, and a survey and interviews with Curriki users, the Curriki case study explored use patterns and user perceptions of the site, its resources and tools. The specific questions addressed include: 1) how often and why users are coming to Curriki; 2) how they use and engage around the Curriki site, its tools and its resources; and 3) what factors help or hinder engagement and use. The goal of this case study has been to develop an understanding of the mechanisms and processes that can help to attract and sustain users over time, and to facilitate and enhance their use, reuse and content contribution experiences

WGBH's Teacher's Domain: Producing Open Materials and Engaging Users

Launched in 2002 by WGBH, the non-commercial public media service, located in Boston, Massachusetts, Teachers' Domain is an online repository of multimedia open educational resources for use in classrooms and for professional development. As part of its effort to increase the availability of freely accessible resources WGBH has developed content from public media archives into high quality, open educational resources for Teachers' Domain. Using a participatory case study methodology, this report examines WGBH and Teachers' Domain's successes and challenges in 1) converting proprietary content to open content 2) engaging users in content and 3) redesigning the Teacher's Domain site to accommodate new categories of use and tools for teachers and learners of all different backgrounds and activity levels. For OER projects more generally, ongoing research on user behaviors, experiences and perceptions can be a challenging and resource-intense process; however, by assessing and building data collection mechanisms and research questions into organizational practices, knowledge and learnings can be cultivated to inform how users are best supported, as well as to inform continuous improvement for the projects overall

Building Open Educational Resources from the Ground Up: South Africa's Free High School Science Texts

This paper presents a case study of the development of the South African project Free High School Science Texts (FHSST), an initiative to develop a free high school science text for all teachers and learners in South Africa. The goals of the case study were two-fold: to examine and analyze the practices associated with the successes and challenges encountered by FHSST; and to encourage a participatory, analytical process that will assist other open education projects in thinking about and sharing their practices, processes, and strategies. Beyond its implications for South African education, the FHSST project can serve as a model for peer production of open content, offering insights into planning and decision making around 1) recruiting volunteers; 2) sustaining their participation; 3) using technology to create effective workflow; 4) conducting hackathons; and 5) facilitating teacher trials. Findings from this study offers insights into overall approaches and goals that may prove instrumental across open education projects, serving as a reference for development of assessment tools and resources that may assist open education projects in tracking, sharing, and advancing their learnings and success

Mission 2007 Training Commons: Developing a Living Curriculum for Telecentre Workers in India

Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre was formed to establish telecentres offering shared access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in each of India's 600,000 villages by the year 2007. The telecentres would support community development and poverty reduction, and would be run by managers trained in specific skill sets that would allow them to serve the diverse needs of the communities they support. The Mission 2007 Training Commons initiative, a collaborative, open content approach drawing on existing trainer expertise, was established to develop resources that could support trainers through a 'living curriculum': materials that were free, accessible online, and easily adapted. The primary objective of the Training Commons case study was to understand and document the practices, processes, successes, and challenges of the partnership and the content development, and to assess the overall impact on stakeholders. Several key learnings were identified that hold relevance to other OER projects, including 1) the role of culture in securing and maintaining open content partnerships, 2) the importance of workflow creation and supports and 3) incorporating user feedback early on to facilitate localization of content and differentiation of content among key types of users; resulting in content that is adaptable and draws on the expertise of multiple partners and individuals

CurriculumNet: Creating Freely Available Curriculum Materials to Meet Uganda's Growing Student Population

The National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), an office under the Ugandan government's Ministry of Education and Sports has using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to assist in addressing the curriculum needs of the growing student population in both rural and urban schools in Uganda. With funding from the Canadian International Development and Research Centre (IDRC), the NCDC developed CurriculumNet, the goal of which has been to develop, test, and integrate ICT-based instructional materials and teaching into existing Ugandan curriculum. This report presents key practices and learnings of the CurriculumNet project in terms of its collaborative curriculum development process, as well as the opportunities and challenges faced by the project overall. Through analysis of the projects internal documentation, as well as interviews with the CurriculumNet project leader, this report documents how the project developed and disseminated content to meet curriculum needs while also addressing funding and infrastructure related challenges

Accountability and Information Practices in the California Community Colleges: Toward Effective Use of Information in Decision-Making

A comprehensive assessment of the effects of performance-based funding is not yet available. Yet according to early national survey results, the impact of performance-based funding on overall campus outcomes has been moderate at best (Burke and Minassians, 2002). These national findings may mirror experiences within California. In 1998, the State of California and the California Community Colleges inaugurated a performance-based funding program called the Partnership for Excellence (PFE). The program launch represented a commitment by the state legislature to earmark additional funding for the community colleges, in exchange for the colleges' agreement to develop, track, and achieve, by 2005, system-wide performance goals to improve student learning and success.Through 2000-01, the state appropriation to the community colleges for the PFE program was allocated by the Chancellor's Office to local college districts based on enrollment. There were conditions in place for moving from an enrollment-based to a more performance-driven formula, but before those conditions were fully triggered, the program was not re-funded. The Legislative Analyst's Office issued an analysis that was critical of the effects of the PFE program on system performance in the community colleges. In its analysis of the 2002-03 state budget, it stated that the program was "failing to meet objectives" and that the measurement of results were "hindered by methodological disagreement and conceptual vagueness" (Legislative Analyst's Office, 2002).During the time period when the Partnership for Excellence (PFE) program was still being funded by the Legislature, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) conducted two district-wide studies, representing eleven colleges, that examined the needs and patterns of data and information access, sharing, and use in two community college districts in California. As part of these studies, a wide range of administrators, faculty, and staff were interviewed about their use of information in decision-making on campus. Given the state's continuing interest in developing an accountability system for the California Community Colleges (Office of the Chancellor, 2005), these studies provide illuminating insights into the complex relationship between external mandates for accountability and internal practices of information and knowledge retrieval, use, and management at the district level

An Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts

"Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts" is the first report in a three-year effort to define how educators are beginning to embrace performance-driven practices in order to transform public education systems into learning organizations. We examine how this process of change is unfolding in 28 medium and large urban school systems, and illuminate the major barriers and needs that educators and school systems must overcome in order to create true performance-driven organizations