Why Data Collection is Important for Universities
The role of data in higher education
From tech startups to large corporations, data is often touted as one of their most valuable resources. And in many industries, it’s easy to see the benefits of tracking digital information such as purchases, customer behavior, website visits, and more. But the benefits of data capture don’t stop at higher education. Universities can track admissions, performance, recruitment, and more to improve the student and faculty experience. Whether your institution plans to pull student information from online forms or improve student housing estimates through analytics, data can drastically improve your university’s operations.
Why is Data Collection Important for Universities?
There are many reasons why data collection is essential to the success of faculty and students. When universities can efficiently and effectively collect data, it can be used to:
1. Make informed decisions
We live in a data-driven world. It's no longer enough to make decisions based on intuition, especially at the university scale. Whether it’s classroom performance or fundraising, universities need concrete data to make informed decisions.
In fact, data-driven decisions are regarded so highly that three professional education organizations released this joint statement:
“[We] stand together with a strong sense of urgency to reaffirm higher education’s commitment to the use of data and analytics to make better strategic decisions.”
2. Provide insights on time, money, and resources
Everyone likes to know how well their financial donations and resources are being used. Data gathered from events, admissions, and more provide useful information. These insights give university administrators a better picture of how their donations and resources are being utilized. Universities can then spend the money, time, and manpower where it’s needed most.
3. Be more proactive
Reactive decisions – choices made after an event has already happened – can only go so far. Data can help predict patterns and trends that could become problems if not addressed immediately. Universities can make proactive decisions before major issues arise and avoid costly mistakes.
4. Monitor student performance
Professors can collect valuable data from questionnaires and surveys to evaluate their students’ overall performance. Moreover, recent technology advances like online forms and digital learning platforms allow instructors to measure performance in real-time.
Daphne Koller, who directs the Platform Regulation at Stanford Cyber Policy Center, believes that collecting student data is the only way forward.
“There is a growing recognition that insights provided by data analysis are essential to the short- and long-term support of a student’s learning journey.”
Popular Data for Universities to Capture
Listed are a few of the many types of data that benefit universities:
Assessments: standardized testing scores and general observations
Attendance: student attendance per class
Demographics: date of birth, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status
Employee Evaluations: measuring faculty performance
Grades: numbers, letters, or scores
Health: health records, counseling, medical conditions, and history
Housing: financial records, dorm records, maintenance requests, and more
Parent/Guardian Contact Information: emails, phone numbers, addresses
Participation: level of engagement from students
Special Indicators: student disability information and specialized education services
Student Identifiers: local ID numbers and student IDs
With so many use cases, it’s clear that data collection is invaluable within universities. But in order to make the most of the data universities collect, it’s important to first make sure that the data is accurate, comprehensive, and secure.
How to Collect Data Effectively
With tens of thousands of faculty and students to keep track of, maintaining compliance and security within higher education can be complicated. However, there are several best practices and tools your university can use to help improve data collection.
Here are a few ways your university can collect better data:
1. Use secure data collection tools
Online data tools like digital forms help universities locate and access records with instantaneous data, simple searchability, and secure cloud storage. This keeps your student and faculty information private, while streamlining the ways you gather that data.
2. Build smarter surveys and forms
The best data are those that get collected, so don’t add burdensome means of gathering information. Paper forms are often difficult to read, time-consuming to fill out, and contain outdated information. Popular mobile forms, like an employee evaluations form, can be easily filled out from phones, tablets or computers, and instantly routed for review once completed.
3. Integrate the data you collect with other tools you already use
Popular platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox are user-friendly and can be integrated into your data collection process. Faculty and administrators can easily access information, and with many cloud storage options you also have the ability to set access permissions. This allows your data to be immediately available only to those who should see it.
Ready to collect data for your university?
About GoFormz
GoFormz is a digital forms solution that’s redefining how universities and businesses collect and process information. With over 100,000 customers in over 150 countries, we’ve helped customers do everything from creating form work orders to automating marketing and sales workflows. We believe that everyone should be able to fill out their forms online and ditch outdated paper processes. That belief set us on a mission to help every customer digitize their forms and modernize how work gets done — all without code.
