Christine Keller: Appreciate the inner
Christine Keller: introduction, and to you and Brian both for the invitation to to join you all this morning. It sounds like a very strong, strong program. So I congratulate you all, and I'm really honored to to kick everything off.
Christine Keller: So I am going to share my slides.
Christine Keller: And get us started.
Christine Keller: Alrighty.
Christine Keller: this morning. I am going to be sharing some highlights from our National survey of Ir offices.
Christine Keller: and I am going to be sharing quite a bit of data. So I want to answer the elephant in the room question before I even start, and that is, I will be sharing the slides after this presentation is over, just in case someone wants to go back and revisit some of the data.
Christine Keller: The other. Thank you. I need to an acknowledgement. I need to say, up front is, Thank my colleague, Darlene Jones.
Christine Keller: She is the analytic genius behind our survey. She's the one that really helped me shape this this presentation, and the one who is leading this survey, and has done since it began in 2015. So thank you to to Darlene for her assistance.
Christine Keller: So you heard my formal bio. But 3 additional things that you need to know about me before I get started. One is, I'm often seen with the diet Coke in my hand, and this presentation will be no different.
Christine Keller: I also enjoy running. I am a long time runner, and I'm really happy to be in Tallahassee. There are so many beautiful trails, and I just have a picture of one that I often go beside my house.
Christine Keller: and finally, I do have a small dog named Addy. She is a wire hair dachshund, and so I was telling the folks earlier that they decided to do. My neighbor has decided to install a whole house generator next door. So if you hear Addie, she's just saying hello and making sure we're all safe and ready to go for for the morning.
Christine Keller: So the national survey of Ir and ie. Offices
Christine Keller: in earlier last fall we did our 4th iteration of the the National Survey.
Christine Keller: We had about just over 600 responses out of about 1,700 attempts for a response rate of 38%, which is not too shabby in in these days.
Christine Keller: So to put together the research data set that I'm going to be using this morning. We did exclude responses from sectors that were not well represented in the results. And you can see a list of those on the screen.
Christine Keller: Also.
Christine Keller: we did remove the respondents, who for some reason stopped out early and just answered a few questions. So the final research data set, we ended up with 552 Us. Degree granting institutions.
Christine Keller: So I was going to try to just aggregate, pull out some of the results from Tennessee. But unfortunately we only had 9 institutions respond from Tennessee, so really not enough to to break out.
Christine Keller: And then I decided I was going to do some polls, and I was defeated again. No, to everyone. You can't transfer polls from user to user outside of the same zoom license. So just in case everybody needs to know that.
Christine Keller: But I may try, throughout the presentation to do a bit of a hand check. Let's use the raise hand function just to maybe see if we can get some sense of where all of you fall. And into this this data set
Christine Keller: just one other note about the data set. You see the 2 pie charts on on the slide. First, st we always compare the results of the national Survey to the ipads universe, and this year, we found that we are slightly underrepresented for private, not-for-profit institutions in 2 year
Christine Keller: public institutions. And we're slightly overrepresented for public 4 year, but not enough to be of concern. So it's not really too far from the ipads universe. And when we disaggregated by us census area, what our data set almost matches the ipads universe. So just another piece of information as as you look at the results
Christine Keller: so threaded throughout my presentation are 2 concepts about the importance of working together in community. One is a quote attributed to John F. Kennedy, and that is a rising tide lifts all boats.
Christine Keller: The other is a concept that's rooted in African philosophies, and that is Mbuntu
Christine Keller: it was often invoked by 2 famous South African leaders, Nelson, Mandela, and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
Christine Keller: and the I am because we are really takes that lifting all boats one step further by emphasizing our interconnectedness, the need to work in community for the good of all.
Christine Keller: And I think that fits well with the theme of the Conference which is navigating uncertainty, collaborating for collective impact.
Christine Keller: And I think our need for collaboration, our need to share each other's knowledge and expertise to elevate everyone has never been greater.
Christine Keller: So you may see this little boat Graphic scattered out throughout the presentation. And those are areas that we at air think that are important areas where we might investigate a little further, how we could collaborate together for the good of our profession overall.
Christine Keller: So also in this talk, I'm going to be comparing the metrics based on institutions with chief data officers and those without.
Christine Keller: This is a new area of research for us. This is the 1st time we've asked that question on the National Survey, and I think you'll see there are some interesting results that we'll need to look at further about the impact of having a chief data officer. And who is that chief data officer at an institution?
Christine Keller: I'm also going to be comparing outcomes by our Ir and ie. Office size. And we've grouped those into very small offices of one fte or less kind of the average office size in the middle from 2 to 4 staff fte, and then the larger offices of more than 6 staff fte
Christine Keller: and I think you're going to see overall when you look at the results by office size, that
Christine Keller: there are opportunities for growth and improvement across all offices for us to learn together. But those very small offices have some particular challenges ahead of them.
Christine Keller: The other piece I wanted to do is, I want to ground this in Air's mission.
Christine Keller: which is as a global association. We empower higher education professionals to use data information analytics in ways that are effective, ethical and impactful, and that we support data informed decision making that amplifies both student and institutional success.
Christine Keller: So we focus both on the development of the individual, professional as well as working to improve an institution's systems, their processes, their structures and culture.
Christine Keller: So what does Airs mission look like in an action
Christine Keller: for us? That means that institutions can produce information that's useful to all employees.
Christine Keller: that those employees can easily access that information, and that the employees can interpret and use that information they have access to, and that exists within the institution.
Christine Keller: So how do we support this? So how do we actually help institutions turn these concepts into action?
Christine Keller: One is to increase data capacity. So how can we work together to help more data to be more prevalent at institutions?
Christine Keller: How can we democratize data? How can we increase data access?
Christine Keller: And how can we improve data literacy? So it's not just about data that exists and we have access. But how is data used responsibly
Christine Keller: for the good of the institutions and the students we serve.
Christine Keller: So let's look at the results of the annual survey within each of these 3 3 concepts.
Christine Keller: So 1st is this idea of increasing debate data capacity which we've defined as an institution's ability to effectively collect, store, manage, analyze data in support of data, informed decision making.
Christine Keller: So while ideally, the Ir and Ie. Office wouldn't be the only office that supports data and analysis for decision making. We found that still, for the most part the bulk of decision support is housed in one ir or ie. Office.
Christine Keller: So
Christine Keller: right now, I'm going to make an assertion. I don't have any direct data other than my observation, but I think it's pretty intuitive, and that is that if you have a larger ir, ie. Office with more staff
Christine Keller: an institution has more data capacity. It it just makes sense. Of course, there's some assumptions embedded in that. You know, the staff have to be well trained. The data processes, you have to have strong robust data systems. But in general, more people in the Ir, ie. Office means more data capacity or the opportunity for more data use at the institution.
Christine Keller: So let's look at the average staff size by sector for Ir and ie. Offices.
Christine Keller: So across the 552 respondents. The average staff size is 3.8 or the average IRIE. Office.
Christine Keller: and if we disaggregate by sector, you'll see that public
Christine Keller: 4 year. Institutions have 5.5 staff Fte
Christine Keller: public 2 year. Have 2.9
Christine Keller: and private not-for-profit. Also have 2.9,
Christine Keller: and there's really nothing magic about 4 year. Public institutions.
Christine Keller: And why? They have more staff? Because we found there is a strong correlation between the number of students at the institution and the number of staff in the Ir. And ie. Office, and we found this correlation since we started this survey in 2015, and in fact, the correlation strong is 0 point 6.
Christine Keller: So that's just a relationship that we found has held up across across time.
Christine Keller: However.
Christine Keller: as with everything, there's caveats to this. It's not true that all public four-year institutions have large ir and ie. Offices.
Christine Keller: So we we took a look at those categories. To see kind of what? What the landscape, what that distribution looks like.
Christine Keller: and for some public four-year institutions, 13%, they have less than one staff fte, and it goes all the way to the top, where 23% have more than 6.
Christine Keller: And then you can also see that same breakdown at public two-year public 2 year have more offices. Almost a 3.rd Just have one or fewer staff, Fte.
Christine Keller: and then the public 4 year, I mean, I'm sorry the private 4 Year institution again are are more likely to have smaller, smaller staff.
Christine Keller: So this is where I was going to do a poll to to see. So let me see if this will work, if we can do this by by the raising of hands.
Christine Keller: So
Christine Keller: How many of you on on this, on this call have, and us what you would be a small office size for so less than one staff. Fte.
Christine Keller: just raise your hand.
Christine Keller: I don't see anybody with offices that quite that small. How about medium? How about from 2 to 4 staff Fte.
Christine Keller: Add one.
Christine Keller: Alright.
Christine Keller: How many have staff that are larger than 6? So the large office size.
Christine Keller: right?
Christine Keller: All right. So apparently a lot of you fell between the 4 to 5. Is that another initiative?
Christine Keller: And okay, okay.
Christine Keller: so I think it is, is it? It seems like it's fair to say. And I'm gonna move
Christine Keller: all of you over there, so I can see.
Christine Keller: So so it looks like. It is fair to say that for most of the folks that are attending this session today you're kind of on the larger skew towards the larger end of of the ir, ie.
Christine Keller: So here is so let's take sector out of it, and just look at the full distribution.
Christine Keller: and this is what the results were for for the survey, so you can kind of see where your office fits into the overall national landscape.
Christine Keller: I continue to have nearly a 3rd of our ir and ie. Offices have less than one staff fte, and I have to say this is hard for me to imagine, because my own experience at the University of Kansas, we had 15 people in our Ir. And ie. Office, and I thought that was normal.
Christine Keller: Imagine my surprise when when reality hit. When I got to Aplu and found out just how many institutions were doing their data and analysis with much, much fewer people.
Christine Keller: Still.
Christine Keller: Then, I want to dig into this this idea of data capacity a little a little further.
Christine Keller: So within the survey there are a series of likert scale questions and to help us kind of simplify the graph. Darlene, group them into these. These 3 buckets with the associated color. So disagree is red neutral is yellow and agree is in green, so you can more easily see
Christine Keller: what the results look like.
Christine Keller: So one of the questions we asked was, Can your office achieve its work, its goals without staff working overtime? And again we disaggregated by office size
Christine Keller: and fully 56% of small offices disagreed. So 56%, in other words, said that they needed to work overtime to get the work done that they needed.
Christine Keller: It's a little better for staff from 2 to 4. Only 44% said some. Some sort of office overtime was required.
Christine Keller: and it's a little again, a little better for larger office size, but I guess I was surprised that even the larger office
Christine Keller: size over almost a 3rd said that
Christine Keller: There was some overtime required to get the work done that was needed.
Christine Keller: So then we asked it, could the offices better meet institutional expectation with additional staff, and no one's going to be surprised by the results that you see here. Between 80 and 90% said yes, regardless of their current staff size.
Christine Keller: So we wanted to dig into this a little deeper. So what is that ideal staff size for ir and ie. Offices? So if you recall, the average is is 3.8,
Christine Keller: and
Christine Keller: the ideal across all sectors was almost an additional 2 staff Fte. They felt that would be the ideal size of staff.
Christine Keller: and we also asked to imagine 3 years from now. What was your ideal staff size look like?
Christine Keller: And somewhat surprisingly, it's still about just a little over 2.2 point 2.
Christine Keller: So are there differences in the AI dependent, this ideal staff size for a lot, small average and and large offices.
Christine Keller: So for small offices, again, 2.2 fte. Additional
Christine Keller: for medium to additional or large, just over 2 additional. So I'm not quite sure what is magical about this 2 additional staff member. But that's what we found consistently across. The small average and and large
Christine Keller: ir office.
Christine Keller: So let's go back in time and look at trends in office size over time.
Christine Keller: So there were
Christine Keller: 253 institutions that answered the survey, both in 2021, and 2024, and effectively for those institutions. We really found no difference in the average office size over the the past 3 years. It stayed pretty consistent.
Christine Keller: So let's go back to 2024, there are 147 participants who answered the survey all 3 years, and the as compared to 2018, the average office size has gone down a bit.
Christine Keller: We hypothesized. This may be a result of the covid pandemic that maybe there was some downsizing around 2020, 21, and then it just never recovered. That became the new steady state.
Christine Keller: So
Christine Keller: beyond staff size. We also asked a series of data environment questions, that kind of get into the data maturity, that of the institution and the office
Christine Keller: and those
Christine Keller: ratings were on a 4 point scale. And again, you know, just to make the graphs easier, to interpret, not occurring or reactive. And I would define reactive. Is this activities only happening in a crisis more of a crisis situation
Christine Keller: and then proactive and optimized, we group together. So one, you're kind of acting in anticipation, taking action to meet future needs and the other is optimized, so the situation is as perfect as it would get under the current situation.
Christine Keller: So let's look at ir office maturity, and how the respondents related the maturity of their office on that 4 point scale on these various kind of common tasks that we see Ir and Iie offices
Christine Keller: performing.
Christine Keller: and you can see on this graph, on the far left, basic analytics all the way to advanced analytics. So they're kind of ordered in in the tasks are ordered in by degree of complexity across that that X-axis.
Christine Keller: So you can see for basic analytics. Most offices felt. Their maturity level was either proactive or optimized
Christine Keller: managing data still very high at at 80%.
Christine Keller: But as I go and click through
Christine Keller: and the tasks become more complex, you can see that people's confidence in rating of the data maturity of their office tends to go down, and which is, is, I don't think, too too surprising.
Christine Keller: So again, I was going to do a poll here about how you would rate your own office for for data maturity. So this would if I do it this time. It's not going to be anonymous. So how do you all feel about that?
Christine Keller: Do you want me to try this? Or do you want you? You? Wanna you wanna give this a shot? Okay, okay?
Christine Keller: All right.
Christine Keller: So what I'm going to ask 1st is, let's go with the kind of just the the basic analytics would. How many of you? What? Let's go with the positive? How many of you would rate your office data maturity for basic analytics as proactive or optimized. Raise your
Christine Keller: virtual hand.
Christine Keller: I'm watching the number go up over here. So so we're looking good. Okay,
Christine Keller: So the other one, let's go to the other end of the scale. How many of you would rate your office's data maturity for advanced analytics as proactive or optimized.
Christine Keller: Erase your virtual.
Christine Keller: I think y'all are better than that.
Christine Keller: Spend a few, a few less, a few less. Okay.
Christine Keller: Okay. So perhaps in an area we could all all work on schedule
Christine Keller: to to figure out how to to better utilize more advanced analytics.
Christine Keller: The other one I was just curious about. And you'll see I'm going to show a breakdown on on this metric later in the slides is for data visualization in particular, which was kind of in the middle of that scale. How many of you would rate your offices as proactive or optimized when it comes to data visualization.
Christine Keller: A few but looks like 1213,
Christine Keller: 14 people would would do that. Okay, alright. Well, thank you all for for indulging me here as as we we do this in in real time. So
Christine Keller: so let me
Christine Keller: So let me kind of take this from
Christine Keller: kind of the next step. So I think that we would all agree that if we could increase the maturity of our ir and ie. Offices. Across these various tasks
Christine Keller: we could increase its capacity to work more effectively, more efficiently, and maybe cut down on some of that overtime that's necessary to to get the work done. So what are some ways? What are some insights we found in the survey to to do that.
Christine Keller: So
Christine Keller: First, st we wanted to take again to segregate by office size and see if there were any trends that that we could look look at, based on office size.
Christine Keller: And
Christine Keller: so, perhaps not surprisingly, that creating data visualizations those larger offices had perhaps more opportunity, perhaps more expertise, perhaps more time to to really lean in to create those data data visualizations
Christine Keller: for managing data. There's a little bit of difference across office sides, but pretty robust overall.
Christine Keller: And then for the basic analytics again, a little bit it. There is some differences.
Christine Keller: And there. These differences are statistically significant, but perhaps not as as different as one might might expect. I'm actually pretty darn impressed with offices with less than one person, and that 78% said that they were proactively able to to get the the basic analytics that were were needed.
Christine Keller: So of course, we know it's more than just additional staff.
Christine Keller: So we asked also asked respondents if their offices were adequately funded to meet those operational needs.
Christine Keller: And again, we're looking at this by by office size.
Christine Keller: So fully 51% of the very small offices felt like they weren't adequately funded.
Christine Keller: That number re goes down a bit for the average office size
Christine Keller: and goes down a little bit more for the larger offices.
Christine Keller: So while things are better for those those larger offices, I I think things still could be improved. That's why you see the boat that my boat icon up here?
Christine Keller: Where are there places that rather collectively we could advocate? Maybe air could help collectively, we could find ways to make our case, to make sure that our Ir and Ir
Christine Keller: offices have the funds they need to fulfill their their operational needs for the institution.
Christine Keller: So now I'm going to move from data capacity over to data access. So it doesn't matter if you have lots and lots of data produced and managed and collected. If the people who need the data can access that data. So let's take a look at what data access looks like from a national perspective.
Christine Keller: And we looked at this in 2 different ways. One is, does the Ir and ie. Office have the access to the data they need to do their job. And then later, and we're going to dig into this metric a little bit more. Do stakeholders have access to the data they need
Christine Keller: to to make the decisions they need and do the analysis, they need to do their jobs.
Christine Keller: But 1st the Ir and ie. Office
Christine Keller: smaller offices about a 3rd have have challenges.
Christine Keller: but so do the the larger offices. 20% of the medium and larger offices still feel like there are some challenges, getting the data. They need to to do their to do their work.
Christine Keller: So I'm I'm curious again. So I'm going to again do do the positive one. How many of you all feel as though you have your office has access the date to the data you need to do your work and your office responsibilities. Do the raise the hand.
Christine Keller: I'm showing about about 8. I see a cup. I see a a real hand raised there, so I'll say 9,
Christine Keller: So maybe there are some, some challenges, again, that collectively could be worked on.
Christine Keller: What are some strategies to to better access the data you need as a data professional to to serve your institution and stakeholders.
Christine Keller: So now, let's turn to to do. Stakeholders have access to the information they need, and we looked at this across 2 different metrics. One is, Do institutions
Christine Keller: meet stakeholders needs for the information so kind of the information itself. And does the institution produce the reports that are easily accessible and used by stakeholders across all all levels.
Christine Keller: And
Christine Keller: this is one of those times when there were no statistical differences between by office size. About a 3rd of Ir and Ir and ie. Leaders report that their stakeholders had some challenges accessing information or reports
Christine Keller: or look at the positive. 2 thirds felt like that they were in their stakeholders did have access to
Christine Keller: to information.
Christine Keller: So let's do another show of hands. How many of you think that your stakeholders do have access to the information and reports that they need to improve student success or outcomes.
Christine Keller: Raise them virtual hand.
Christine Keller: That's
Christine Keller: that's it. That's that's interesting. At least by by the show of hands and the count that was showing on the screen, it appeared that for for your group. You all thought that your stakeholders had greater access to to the data than you do yourself, or there are fewer challenges which is.
Christine Keller: is, is interesting to to think about what may be the implications for that, or it could be an error in the polling. So well, that's something interesting to to think about.
Christine Keller: so I think we can all agree that if we could increase access to data for both our offices, and especially for our stakeholders. We could improve student outcomes.
Christine Keller: It just seems. I think that's just something we hold as as a belief within a profession. If we could get those, you know retention reports. If we could combine it with financial aid data, if we could create those those just in time dashboards for our stakeholders
Christine Keller: that those stakeholders would be able to use that information, be able to make better decisions, resources that could be allocated more effectively.
Christine Keller: So what are ways that we could potentially do that. And what are some insights we learned from from the National Survey.
Christine Keller: and this is the one of the places where we did try to to get a handle on. Were there differences for those institutions with chief data officers on these 2 access metrics versus institutions that did not have a chief data officer.
Christine Keller: And so we asked this question
Christine Keller: because this particular position is, it's not really widespread yet. We asked it in 3 different ways.
Christine Keller: We asked. It does your institution have a chief data officer? And is it you as the the Iri office leader?
Christine Keller: Do you have a chief data officer? But it's outside the Irie office. And does your institution not have
Christine Keller: a chief data officers?
Christine Keller: So for this 1st one, I'm just going to look at whether the institution has a chief data officer or not.
Christine Keller: And so again, looking at those data stakeholder data access questions, this is what we found.
Christine Keller: And these differences are statistically significant. We found that
Christine Keller: for those who had a chief data officer or someone dedicated to helping optimize data across the institution not surprisingly, stakeholders in general had more access to information.
Christine Keller: and the same when it comes to producing high quality reports.
Christine Keller: And, as I said, both of those are statistically significant and
Christine Keller: the the outcome gets even better when the Iri office leader is also the the chief data officer.
Christine Keller: So when you look at those 2 questions, you see, it bumps up to 81% rated access to data as either optimized or proactive. If the chief data officer was also the office leader which
Christine Keller: think there's some some wisdom there, some lessons we can learn from that, and the same when it comes to
Christine Keller: the reports and the availability for institutions.
Christine Keller: So my next question is, for how many of your institutions I'm going to do this in 2 parts. First, st I'm going to ask how many of your institutions have a chief data officer role if you would raise your virtual hand.
Christine Keller: Okay, we've got account of about 8 on on a little metric here.
Christine Keller: All right. So now, the next question I'm going to ask is, how many for those of you who have chief data officers, how or how many of you. Is that also the Iri office leader?
Christine Keller: So I. My 1st number was 8. My second number was 4, so just in general, maybe about half
Christine Keller: of those who have chief data officers. It's also the office leader.
Christine Keller: And then, finally.
Christine Keller: I want to talk about data literacy, which is a topic near and dear to my heart, because it doesn't matter how much data you have or who has access to it. If the people who have the access don't have the knowledge and skills to use the data appropriately, responsibly.
Christine Keller: The impact is is not going to be as strong as it. It could be
Christine Keller: so. When we measured this on the National Survey, we used 2 different metrics. We use the rating on employees understand institutional information, and also that employees know when that information should be used for decision making.
Christine Keller: and
Christine Keller: turns out that there's no statistical difference between office size. This is consistent across all IRIE. Office sizes.
Christine Keller: Although I do find this this, this result a little depressing.
Christine Keller: Yeah, over half rated institutional data literacy as not occurring or reactive.
Christine Keller: So I think we all perhaps have some work to do. Where are ways that we can actually improve data literacy at our our institutions?
Christine Keller: so what are ways that that we can do that. How can we impact data literacy on our campus? So the data that we spend so much time collecting and managing and providing access to is actually used for the benefit of both the institution and for our students.
Christine Keller: So again, we look for insights for the chief data officer question
Christine Keller: and perhaps not surprisingly. We found that the rating of data literacy on those 2 metrics improved. If the chief data officer was also the the office leader.
Christine Keller: And you can see fully 85%.
Christine Keller: Said that employees know when information could be used for decision making and 66 understand institutional information. And these are over 20 point differences between these 2 ratings.
Christine Keller: So again, that idea of a dedicated position, of a chief data officer does make a difference.
Christine Keller: and I dug around just a little bit to see what other evidence there was about the value of a chief data officer, and I found some work by educause, also by the Gates Foundation, and from those sources some of the findings they found were chief data officers.
Christine Keller: Often help bridge those divides between Ir, it and the academic units. They can help bring those people together, build trust and understanding of what data was available.
Christine Keller: There were also some case studies I found from Arizona, State and the University of Wisconsin Systems, and those those schools, those systems had found that Cdo position and in particular help kind of demystify data for non-technical staff.
Christine Keller: So even though this is a newer measure for us, it seems like there is evolving evidence from other associations and other studies that that Cdo position is, is and can be important.
Christine Keller: But it's not just about one person in one position. Many of you may recall that air published the statement of aspirational practice for institutional research back in 2016, and one of the things we posited, and one of the calls for action we had within that report
Christine Keller: was that institution had a role. Institutional research had a role to play when it comes to coaching. So not just providing data, but helping stakeholders use the data for a wide array of data consumers and our goal for data literacy that that we had. Was it for it to be as ambiguous as expectations for writing and speaking and computer skills.
Christine Keller: So within the National Survey we used in back in 2018, we asked the question, so how many ir and ie. Offices were providing educational opportunities for stakeholders.
Christine Keller: and in
Christine Keller: 2018, we found that number was about 28%. So just a little over a quarter.
Christine Keller: But when we asked that question again in 2021, that number had almost doubled. So about half by our and ie. Office, were providing some sort of educational opportunity for for their stakeholders.
Christine Keller: and again, in 2024, that number went up a little bit more.
Christine Keller: So now it's almost 60% for providing some sort of educational opportunity.
Christine Keller: So or
Christine Keller: just went backwards. There we go. So for the 2024 survey. Darlene also took those numbers and just aggregated it by office size, just to see if there were any any differences, and 44% of those very small offices
Christine Keller: are still finding ways to to help with data, coaching and data literacy, which I think is is quite impressive
Christine Keller: And as the office size gets larger, not surprisingly, there are probably more expertise, more opportunities to help with improving data literacy on our our campuses.
Christine Keller: So if you're doing the training, are there their differences in outcomes when it comes to those ratings of data, literacy, maturity.
Christine Keller: And yes.
Christine Keller: we found that data literacy training does does matter as measured by the the ratings on the data literacy, maturity for those 2 metrics. So you can see that for those Irie offices that are providing training their data, literacy ratings. They they rated their institution as higher
Christine Keller: on both of the the different metrics. So the short answer to my question is, yes.
Christine Keller: but I think those red parts of that bar are still pretty high. So again, I think we still have some work to do as a profession? How can we collaborate together? How can we exchange ideas? How can we collectively help our stakeholders better understand so they can use the data that we are providing to to them.
Christine Keller: and the training does help 30% difference. But I think we all still have some some work to do
Christine Keller: so one more, Poll, I'm curious how many of you in in your role as an ir or ie. Officer, how many of you all provide some sort of data literacy, coaching, training, informal or informal to your stakeholders. You would raise your hand.
Christine Keller: Quite a quite a few of you. That is, that is, that is great. And now you have evidence that it makes a difference.
Christine Keller: So I I know there is all sorts of creative ways to do this. I've heard of open houses where there's wine and data involved, wine, data and cheese to to actually going into
Christine Keller: an academic unit and really walking through dashboards and report so I think there's a range of stories I've heard about how I are in our offices are fulfilling
Christine Keller: that need.
Christine Keller: So
Christine Keller: I know I've shared lots of data, a lot of information. It's it's been nearly an hour since since I started talking, and I think it's, I think. It's pretty clear. There's not one size fits all path path forward.
Christine Keller: And some of these challenges are not. They're not easy. There's not just an obvious solution to move forward.
Christine Keller: But I'm convinced that we, as a profession can influence change, and one of the ways we can do that is, if we're clear about our needs, we start to build those important coalitions, to to support our work.
Christine Keller: I think one of the keys is to figure out kind of what's within our control. And where can we make some progress? And then, step by step, we can build from there.
Christine Keller: So what I wanted to do is conclude by kind of walking through what some of those steps might look like for improvement. I'm going to borrow one of the strategies that we share within our air leadership course. Air leads leadership with evidence, data and analytics.
Christine Keller: because in that course what we try to do is provide tools and strategies that don't require a huge investment or some new fancy data system. But what can we do where we are now? So I'm just going to walk through an example of what this might look like, with the hope that there are some ideas, and perhaps some some further conversation. As you continue your time together.
Christine Keller: So I think the 1st question for for all of us is getting clear on what is so? What is the reality of the situation. What are you actually doing right now? What does your team spend time on?
Christine Keller: Who else is involved in those conversations? I know this sounds really basic. But sometimes getting those things on paper can really be eye-opening, and you can do that through workflows or logs, or one of the tools we use a lot is that racy tool? So who's responsible? Who's accountable? Who's consulted and who's informed?
Christine Keller: I think those are important questions to get some clarity on.
Christine Keller: and then equally important to ask the question of, Why are you doing the things you're doing?
Christine Keller: Why are we still doing that report? Who's using that dashboard? And if the answer is unclear. Perhaps there's some redundancy, and there are some things that that we can let go.
Christine Keller: So the next step is, where are there opportunities for efficiencies.
Christine Keller: Maybe it's automating part of your work. Maybe it's saying no to low value requests or having honest conversations with your stakeholders about those trade-offs.
Christine Keller: I think that by nature many of us in Ir and ie. Are helpers. We really want to serve the needs of our stakeholders.
Christine Keller: but I think part of being helpful is also being strategic.
Christine Keller: So where can we focus that limited capacity that we saw in the survey to focus on those things that matter most
Christine Keller: for our institutions and for our our students.
Christine Keller: So once you've clarified what's being done where efficiencies are possible, then, of course, we have to gather some evidence.
Christine Keller: And one of the things we found that, and reported back from our institutions that the idea of Roi, even though it's a business concept return on investment, that sometimes people kind of bristle at in higher Ed, that sort of analysis can really be powerful to to leadership.
Christine Keller: And just as important is finding allies.
Christine Keller: So when others advocate beside you, it kind of shifts from my office needs to our institution needs.
Christine Keller: And I think that's just another
Christine Keller: important point on why gatherings like like this are so very important to share knowledge and kind of build that that common purpose, whether that's across the ut system, or or even wider.
Christine Keller: And then, of course, even with clear evidence, we still need to prioritize, and that is step 4. And, as I often tell our own staff, sometimes this means we have to choose between really good things. We wish we could do it all. But sometimes we need to make choices about what we need to pursue now what we can defer and what may not happen.
Christine Keller: And these things are not
Christine Keller: static. Right can't put together a plan and execute, because leadership changes our institution. Situation evolves the policy environment that's surrounding us is obviously changing. It seems like on a daily basis.
Christine Keller: So unless you have some priorities to start, though I think it's true that even stronger teams risk burnout or their efforts just become shattered, scatter, shot, and don't have an impact.
Christine Keller: And those overtime numbers worry me about the health of all of us as a profession. So where can we kind of prioritize? Where can we refocus our our efforts.
Christine Keller: And I think when you go through that kind of 4 step analysis
Christine Keller: that local opportunities, even within tight budgets often emerge, and sometimes these are small wins. Maybe it's a process you can streamline. Maybe it's 1 of those reports you can retire. Maybe it's a dashboard that can be simplified.
Christine Keller: but sometimes it's a bigger insight. Maybe it's identifying a partner office that's ready to collaborate in a new way for the benefit of of both offices.
Christine Keller: And I think the important point is to stay open to what is possible even when budgets are and resources feel constrained or tight.
Christine Keller: I also think this sort of analysis puts you well positioned doing, you're ready to advocate for more whether it be budget, tools or people, because and no surprise, your case is grounded in evidence.
Christine Keller: and the framing matters.
Christine Keller: it can tie it to our institutions, goals, compliance risks, operational efficiencies. What does your leadership care about the most?
Christine Keller: So when your case for more resources connects the dot between the data and the impact for the institution. It just resonates
Christine Keller: more deeply.
Christine Keller: And finally, I just want to say that none of us are in this alone. Air. We're here to help where we can.
Christine Keller: whether that be through our courses we have a new consulting arm that could be of value. Also our peer networks I can almost guarantee there is going to be people who face similar challenges. You only have to look at the survey results and those and we together, we can figure out a way through.
Christine Keller: So if you're not sure where to start, we often say, start with the conversation. Maybe it's a peer within your institution. Maybe it's with another air member. Maybe it's with here in this gathering with a colleague from another ut institution.
Christine Keller: We do offer opportunities connect and network at air. We have our online community platform air hub. It's free and open to all all you need to do is is create an account. You don't have to be an air member.
Christine Keller: We also offer monthly coffee chats through just informal opportunities, and those this is a member benefit for members to get together and discuss.
Christine Keller: But again, I just want to commend all of you for for this 3rd gathering of the summit, where you can learn together as peers. These are opportunities to surface ideas you may have not even thought of before, and I think even more importantly, right now, where you can get the encouragement and supports. You need to take that next step
Christine Keller: because my vote icon has reappeared. I don't ever want to estimate the power of our community to to get through and to thrive, no matter what the circumstances.
Christine Keller: So that's
Christine Keller: the end of my slides. So I got through them a little more quickly. I think the lack of polls. I got through pretty quickly. But I'm glad to to start a conversation. What resonates what questions you have for me for each other? I can. I will. In fact.
Christine Keller: ends slideshow, so we don't have the the slideshow in our way.
Christine Keller: and so can have a conversation or questions. Whatever is the the will of the group again? Thank you for the opportunity to share some of what we've learned with all of you.
Rachel Borashko: Thank you so much, Christine. I appreciate the presentation that was really helpful, I know, at least for me and some really great nuggets in there. I know 1 point. Part of being helpful is being strategic, and I was like, I gotta cling in on the that's such a good point. You know, we get. Sometimes we'll get really focused on the next thing or the next ask. And it is, it is still being helpful to be strategic and thinking long term. So
Rachel Borashko: I really appreciated that I will invite anybody. If you want to unmute and ask questions, please feel free to do so we do have some questions in the chat that I can pull from. Also, if nobody wants to speak up.
Rachel Borashko: Oh, we're also we're too shy. We're too. Nobody wants to be the 1st one. Okay? So I. There were some questions that came through in the chat, so I can just read those for you, Christine, if you are comfortable with answering them. Okay. So when you were discussing participants, sense that they didn't have an adequate access to information and reports. You noted there wasn't a correlation with office size. What other factors do you think could be driving? What's apparently a common phenomenon.
Christine Keller: Think it it it. So I'm I'm hypothesizing. I we did, you know. I I would need to do more research to to figure that that out. But I I think that
Christine Keller: towards the end of the presentation I I think probably all of you notice when we started talking about data, literacy and reporting and information. It, it seemed like office size mattered, mattered less. So it seems like we as a profession are are
Christine Keller: still looking for ways to. I, I always say, get the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time, which it just rolls off the tongue. But I think that is is still our challenge. How do we get timely, actionable information in the hands of users.
Christine Keller: and especially when the world's changing so much. Our institutions are changing so much, at least for me. That's kind of what we just got done. Many of you, some of you were there. I saw you at our annual conference, and that this idea of timely actionable just in time information came through from so many conversations that that we had.
Christine Keller: So if that's something we could start to unpack as a community and get together and get some strategies, I think we could. This is one of those opportunities where we could have really help all office sizes. So that's more of a comment and not an answer to your question. But that's kind of where I see some of the the
Christine Keller: barriers that that are happening right now.
Rachel Borashko: Thank you.
Rachel Borashko: What are some traits or practices that contribute most to improved data literacy when a Cdo is in place, and can those be replicated by non-cdo leaders.
Christine Keller: So that's a part that we we tried to dig in to
Christine Keller: a little bit bit deeper, and we found in, and we did a separate survey of Ceos, and what we ended up doing. We found there were people on campuses, particularly in Ir, and ie. Offices that were kind of acting as de facto
Christine Keller: cdos, which we found interesting. So they didn't have the role. They didn't have the title. The institution didn't have the role, but when they described what they were doing to engage with the community, it became clear that they were doing that that sort of role.
Christine Keller: I I think I would.
Christine Keller: I go back to some of what I found when I I did kind of a search about what research is out there about the effectiveness of cbo or research is maybe too strong award evidence or experiences or practices.
Christine Keller: and I really think it is having a person with an institution wide perspective that can look at the various groups of stakeholders, have conversations with them, and figure out what the barriers are for them to to actually use data effectively, and to use that data to influence their decisions and take actions.
Christine Keller: So rather, having one person with kind of a overall institutional view of those things is important. The other thing I think, that came through is having a person that can start to build connections and trust.
Christine Keller: I know for many of us. We're like, of course, you use data. It's it's, you know, it's awesome. It's great. Give me more data. I couldn't give that presentation with all of the charts and graphs to to anybody of the senior leaders their eyes would glaze over. But we're like, Okay, give me more. What's behind that information.
Christine Keller: And I think having someone who can focus on not just the data, but those relationships to build trust and understanding
Christine Keller: to give people permission to ask those questions about data. I think, having both the relationship piece and the institution wide perspective. I think that's kind of what we're seeing with that Cdo role is someone dedicated to to those 2 pieces that I, at least from what I've seen in the literature and the practices and the case, studies those things really matter.
Rachel Borashko: Makes a lot of sense to me, right? Like, if you if you've got a chief data officer with those connections, right? Maybe people know, then, where they can get the data. Who to ask for it. You might not even have that otherwise.
Christine Keller: Yeah, and.
Nick Humensky: Hey! Christine!
Christine Keller: There's yes! Whoa!
Nick Humensky: Hey? That was! I can hear you.
Rachel Borashko: Good spotlight. So maybe we can, you know.
Christine Keller: There we go!
Rachel Borashko: Okay.
Nick Humensky: I was the one who asked that question. I was the one who asked that question. I was just curious, if, like for the connections and the relationships part portion. Do you think that the title itself.
Nick Humensky: a chief chief data officer, helps build that trust. People will look at that and think like.
Nick Humensky: yes, let's definitely trust this person. Or is there a possibility for someone
Nick Humensky: else without that title to help.
Nick Humensky: you know, help themselves, gain that trust, and build those relationships.
Christine Keller: Had a couple of anecdotes
Christine Keller: that I will share, that the title in some situations does matter because it gives you credibility. It opens doors that may have not been open before. I know a couple of colleagues that in the past 6 months have moved into, and and they've been doing the work before.
Christine Keller: but then they were given the title of Cdo, and it did make a difference. It it did it the that gave some
Christine Keller: cache to to the work they were doing, and some more institution, wide recognition.
Christine Keller: At the same time. When I think about my former boss at the University of Kansas. She operated as a Cdo. Even back 20 years ago, when I was there, and her title was Director of Institutional Research.
Christine Keller: But she was one of those people who could build relationships, and she would build a relationship with everyone. She knew someone in every academic unit across the university, and she went to lunch with them. She was, she understood, the importance of building trust and relationship. So I think it's possible without it. And there are people who are doing that very, very successfully.
Christine Keller: but I think it kind of gives you a jump start if you have the title and just makes it a bit easier. That that's that's just observation from from my experience.
Nick Humensky: Thank you.
Rachel Borashko: Got a couple more questions I can return to, but I'll open it up again in case anybody thought of anything that they want to come off of mute and ask.
Rachel Borashko: so does air provide data literacy training to members? And if not, do you have any resources to use for self guided learning?
Christine Keller: Yes, we do. We have something called the the Data Literacy Institute.
Christine Keller: It's one of our newer offerings that is targeted at institutions rather than individuals. So what it is, it's a 12 week
Christine Keller: program.
Christine Keller: And you build a cross institutional cross, functional and across institutional for one institution. It's a cross functional cohort of individuals
Christine Keller: that work together and walk through a course over the 12 weeks as well as work on several institution or related projects. So you're learning and working on a project that's directly related for your institution. As the group moves forward.
Christine Keller: So I think we've, I think we're up to almost a dozen cohorts that have moved through the program.
Christine Keller: It's it's a commitment. It's a 12 week program for so obviously senior leadership is important here to get the commitment to give people the release time. But we really true, try to build those cohorts from faculty Ir directors enrollment management, I mean.
Christine Keller: one of our biggest fans was a professor of physics in one of the earlier cohorts, and he just raves about the experience and the connections he was able to build on his own.
Christine Keller: So if if anyone's, you know, I'd be glad to to. If anyone's interested or wants to learn more. Glad to put you in touch with Jason Lewis is our deputy director, is the person who leads those efforts. Glad to connect you with Jason. If if you're interested.
Rachel Borashko: Question about that just popped up in the chat. Is it online?
Christine Keller: It is, it is it is a completely virtual some of the cohorts.
Christine Keller: The cohort on the institution, so they'll often meet together and do do some of the work together. So there is kind of an in person on campus. But the the course itself is is online. It's live online. So people are in real time with an instructor that so you can
Christine Keller: have interaction and share. There's some tutorials that you do outside of the online meeting?
Christine Keller: So it's it's it's it's a combination of different modalities. But it's not an in-person experience.
Rachel Borashko: I meant to stop recording before Q. And A, so I'm gonna stop now that I.