In his book Data Driven, author Thomas Redman presents the statistic that knowledge workers spend on average up to 30 percent of their time searching for the information they need to do their jobs. I suspect that a good percentage of these knowledge workers are further assembling information that other decision-makers need to do their jobs, indicating that decision-makers suffer from lack of easily-available information as well. This was brought home to me in a very concrete fashion at a meeting I attended the other day.
At this meeting (the group and individuals will remain nameless to protect the innocent), it was mentioned that "the Dean of Arts and Sciences reports that our general studies course sections have all filled after only three orientation sessions (out of eight total)." The implication was that we have a totally unanticipated crisis here, that we need to field more sections of general studies, and that we need to find an extraordinary way to pay for these extra course sections.
This immediately led to a plethora of questions, all of which appeared unanswerable in the immediate context of this meeting. Why have these sections all filled? Are we offering fewer sections this year than last? Have they truly all filled, or just some of them? Is this due to increased enrollment of freshman and sophomores (the primary consumers of general studies courses)? Better retention of sophomores? Or shifting enrollment patterns -- that is, will there be fewer enrollments in upper-level courses, freeing up faculty who could teach more general studies sections? How does this pattern compare with the situation after three orientation sessions in previous years?
For a university -- particularly a "teaching university" -- meeting student demand for course sections is the equivalent of Wal Mart keeping high-demand product inventory on the shelves. In other words, it's the primary product delivery value chain of the institution. Issues of demand, inventory, supply pipeline, etc. are absolutely critical, and the institution needs to stay ahead of patterns like a "run" on a particular category of high-demand course offerings. Information on these issues, presented in a clearly-understandable context with historical background for comparison, is absolutely essential to the management of the enterprise.
How long will it take us to assemble this information, assess the situation, and react to this shifting enrollment pattern? I'm afraid to guess, but it makes me confident in Redman's 30% lost productivity statistic. And it reinforces to me yet again how vital a comprehensive enrollment management information system is for any higher education institution.
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...Clearly hit the nail on the head; the "blind" will even see why metrics are so valuable. I would have thought: What's the use? ... This paints a high resolution picture in less than a 1000 words.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Our student system was developed in the eighties and we have applied "dressings" and band aids to make it modern. In order to answer these types of questions and to have data available to administration, when they need it, we must move on and update our Student Information System as quickly as possible.
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