May 23, 2023
Accelerating our focus on creating a data-informed university culture
Submitted by Provost Charles Taber
Dear Colleagues,
Creating robust data analytics and institutional research capabilities to support data-informed decision-making at K-State has been a university priority since 2019, when it became clear it was critical to future strategic enrollment management efforts. Since then, Associate Provost Bin Ning and the staff of the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, or OIRA, have made much progress, working collaboratively with stakeholders across the university to move us to a more data-driven culture. As we work to become a leading next-generation land-grant university, we know there is more work to do.
As a part of the work of Building Operational Excellence for a Next-Generation Land-Grant University, President Linton and I recently announced several organizational changes. These changes included consolidating university business intelligence and data analytics functions within OIRA. In recognition of this change, OIRA is being renamed as the office of Data, Assessment and Institutional Research, or DAIR. The new DAIR will assume expanded roles and overall responsibilities in areas of data policy, governance and management; the development, management and maintenance of the university data warehouse; business intelligence and analytics; decision support; institutional reporting; and institutional accreditation, assessment and program review. DAIR will provide a broader range of information services and serve as a catalyst that accelerates K-State's journey toward a culture that effectively uses institutional data.
"Unifying data sources has the greatest potential impact on institutions’ strategic goals," Educause, 2022. With the broader responsibilities and to further emphasize the salient role of DAIR, Bin Ning, currently associate provost of OIRA, will serve as the associate provost of institutional research and K-State's inaugural chief data officer, or CDO, effective June 11. Ning arrived at K-State in 2019 and has led the OIRA office through transformative changes by building partnerships across the university, providing much-improved user services and delivering data products to the hands of decision-makers at all levels. As the CDO, Ning will oversee enterprise data management, governance, content, and use of university enterprise data systems related to official reporting, data analytics and business intelligence tool development. The CDO will serve as the steward of the institutional data warehouses and will oversee the development and implementation of the institutional data policy.
As K-State is on the cusp of embarking on its new NextGen strategic plan this fall, using high-quality data to develop baselines, monitor progress and measure key performance indicators of outcomes is one of the keys to success. I am confident that the new DAIR will not only provide more critical support to the NextGen plan but also enhance our capacity to better manage and use data across the university.
Sincerely,
Charles Taber
Provost and executive vice president