January 26, 2021
Launching K-State data analytics project
Submitted by Charles Taber and Gary Pratt
Dear Colleagues:
We are writing today to let you know about an important project to support our continued progress toward building an enhanced data analytics program at Kansas State University. As you may know, we are striving to improve K-State's data and analytics capabilities in ways that will achieve the following goals:
- Enable an information-driven organization that utilizes analytics and business intelligence for strategic decisions.
- Increase consistency and accuracy of data and information through coordination and controls.
- Establish oversight, administration, and governance for the university community.
- Streamline data interfaces and integrations across multiple systems, including student, financial, and employee data.
- Unify data sources and provide a secure environment for business intelligence and analytics.
- Visualize large amounts of complex data to quickly identify trends and patterns.
Over the next several months, we will launch a comprehensive assessment project to gather feedback from key stakeholders across the university about their data analytics needs. This project will help create a plan to build a data analytics program that aligns with strategic and organizational goals and align our data analytics needs with current and future market and technology trends.
Jan Elsasser, deputy CIO, and Bin Ning, associate provost for institutional research will serve as the project co-leaders. We have engaged a consulting firm, Plante Moran, as part of this effort. Our consultant will facilitate two major activities that will involve many area leaders and staff members. In early February, a pre-assessment survey will be sent to data analytics stakeholders to provide insights on topics to be discussed during the listening sessions. Based on the findings of the pre-assessment survey, a series of listening sessions will be conducted in March with data analytics stakeholders to better understand the data analytics challenges they face and gain insight into what is needed in the future environment. The overall project will conclude in May when Plante Moran will present a final consultation report and recommendations.
We look forward to your participation and input in this important project. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to contact project co-leaders Jan Elsasser at janels@k-state.edu and Bin Ning at bning@k-state.edu.
Thank you.
Chuck Taber, Provost and Executive Vice President
Gary Pratt, Chief Information Officer