Before anyone can evaluate anything about Ohio University, they need numbers.
That’s why a group of six OU employees in the Office of Institutional Research sort through thousands of pieces of data.
The office, housed in the Computer Services Center, located on President Street, collects information about the university for any entity that inquires, including internal offices such as admissions and state or federal government entities, said Barbara Wharton, associate provost for institutional research and effectiveness who leads the center.
“We’re watchdogs over the data, so (we) make sure if something doesn’t look right we can let (the university) know,” said Annette Skillman, associate director for enrollment analysis and reporting.
The office makes public 52 of its 54 state-required reports. This data makes for some of the most time-consuming projects, such as the office’s submission to the Ohio Board of Regents, which requires enrollment numbers, courses offered and credit hours.
Some data has become more important to analyze with transitions in OU policy, such as the switch to the Responsibility Centered Management budget model, said Liz Bennett, associate director for data management, analysis and reporting.
Once Institutional Research updates the information on its website, OU faculty and administrators can log in to a restricted-access section and obtain the data, Skillman said.
Each of the office’s employees work on a daily data task, such as emailing OU’s admissions data to OU President Roderick McDavis every morning, Bennett said.
In addition to ongoing tasks and projects, the office is currently transitioning into the PeopleSoft information system, which makes some projects more time-consuming, Wharton said.
Once the office feels comfortable with its new information system, the next task will be to inform other departments on campus how to properly interpret the data they can access as well as get to know who is asking for information throughout campus.
“It’s also a good opportunity to get feedback on what people would want,” Bennett said.
The office restricts some data from the public when it deems the information difficult to interpret, but it will offer the information along with help understanding the report if someone were to ask for it.
“We feel a little responsible if we hand you the data and wrong answers comes with them,” Wharton said.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
This article appeared in print under the headline "One office oversees all of OU’s data"
