What do Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) want to know?

In April 2010 JISC infoNet ran an 'Assessing Information Needs' survey as part of its Business Intelligence (BI) programme. The survey was designed to ascertain what information senior institutional managers and key decision-makers within universities and colleges would most like access to in order to fulfil the responsibilities of their position. The survey generated 116 validated responses providing a credible and detailed foundation on which to develop further the BI programme's objective to assist institutions in the development of their business intelligence systems.

Subsequently, once the initial findings of the Information Needs Analysis had been identified and published;

• A series of detailed interviews was undertaken to achieve a greater depth of knowledge and understanding of institutions' business intelligence requirements and the achievements and challenges they had encountered to date
• Interviews were held with seventeen institutions during which it became clear that the survey findings were strongly substantiated within this sample, and further detail of requirements and challenges, included below, was elicited

The establishment of this sound primary evidence base provides robust and verifiable data so enabling subsequent research to be credible and reliable. It demonstrates that there is a basis of understanding within institutions of what effective business intelligence might deliver, and identifies what are institutions' most common requirements in this area. There is repeated evidence of some of the challenges that currently hinder institutions in their quest for effective operative business intelligence systems. Thus the analysis of responses to the question 'What do you want to know?' provided below shows clearly some of the user requirements and expectations of institutional BI systems. In order to be successful, any proposed BI system should either be able to answer the type of questions on the range of subjects indicated below, or ensure that the project is able to manage such expectations appropriately.

What do higher education (HEIs) & further education institutions (FEIs) want to know?

Leaders and strategic planners in higher and further education institutions recognise that the most effective planning depends on sound evidence-based decision-making. This requires a commitment to undertake the right processes to gather, present, and use that base of evidence to deliver reliable and authentic business intelligence.

Our survey results revealed a wide range of areas of interest, clearly indicating the breadth and depth of information that ideally institutions would like to access in order to function proactively and effectively.

Assessing Information Needs Survey - Area of interest chart

Two of the questions in the survey (Question 2 and Question 4) provided the opportunity for open-ended answers.

Question 2 asks, 'In relation to your current role what is the most burning question that you would most like to be able to answer within your institution which you are not currently able to?' In short: 'What would you most like to know?'

Question 4 asks, 'Do you have any projects or initiatives either planned or underway which may address any of the issues you have identified?'

In order to meaningfully analyse the data provided we have profiled the answers received into categories. The following table provides a list of the categories employed, together with a definition of how we have interpreted each category for the purpose of analysis. The final two columns within this table indicate whether the category in question is applicable to Question 2, Question 4, or both.

Categories	Definition	Question 2: Interest Categories	Question 4: Project Categories
Finance/costing	Funding, income and expenditure by activity, cost effectiveness, sustainability
Student data/information	Life cycle data, Staff Student Ratios (SSR), student numbers
Performance measurement and management	Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), added value
Research data/information	Principal Investigators (PIs), Research Excellence Framework (REF) data
Estates/space management	Estate and space information
Data and information management	How do institutions manage their data and information, data quality, common definitions and sources?
Staff data	SSR, profile, retention, workloads, costs
Benchmarking	How do institutions compare with orders within the sector?
Strategic planning	Portfolio planning, strategic planning, international strategy
Marketing	Market trends, area of growth, market share
Business and community engagement	External engagement, managing external contacts, collaboration
Workload planning model	Academic workloads
New technologies	Flexible Service Delivery Programme, Enterprise Architecture, New learning technology, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) data analysis	Collecting and analysing data contributing to Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) returns
Improving business processes	Improving business processes within student systems, change management, process review
Development of data warehouse	Development of a repository of an organisation's electronically stored data
Data quality	Data accuracy and timeliness, common definitions
Scoping information needs	Finding out about management information needs, problems and solutions, missing data
Integrated business reporting	Management reporting based on integrated IT systems, use of a data warehouse, provision of current information
Effective systems already in place
Project unspecified
None

Who's asking the questions?

Individuals in a range of roles across HE and FE campuses are committed to developing business intelligence solutions in order to answer key strategic and operational business questions. Findings of the survey described above, showed how widespread that interest actually is.

Nearly half of the those interested, as might be expected, were based in management and information planning departments. Members of the executive - vice chancellors (VCs) and pro-vice chancellors (PVCs) - and heads of academic departments were also strongly represented. Key concerns were also highlighted by registrars and heads of service and other departments (eg estates, human resources, student information, information services, finance)..

Who is interested in what?

Staff in a wide range of roles highlight the importance of finance and costing, led by VCs and PVCs but also including those in management information and planning departments. Data and information management is also a key concern of these departments, as well as of registrars. All are interested in benchmarking and performance measurement to a greater or lesser extent, while heads of academic and finance departments emphasise issues related to research data and information. The following table shows the key concerns of individual job profiles.