Higher education has faced increased pressure to prove its quality through 'economic efficiency' and 'value for money', thrusting institutions into what researchers call an 'audit culture'. This study explores whether and how the audit culture has impacted educational developers in Canadian post-secondary institutions. Results include a summary of…

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education has mostly focused on issues associated with teaching and assessment. In this paper I used AI to support the analysis of data which consisted of public comments on a newspaper article. This small, low risk research was chosen to demonstrate the potential use of AI and how it may support…

This article is the second of a three-part series based on the book "Basic Guide to Financial Aid." The contents within are adapted from the publication, with additional emphasis on the impact federal student aid administration has on non-financial aid professionals in higher education today. It should be noted that this information is…

The U.S. Department of Education has required educational collection and reporting. For postsecondary institutions, this requirement has evolved from the Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS), which was used from the 1960s to the 1980s, to the Integrated postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) (Aliyeva, Cody, & Low, 2018).…

One lasting legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic may be more students attending online classes at both traditional and fully online colleges. The efficacy of online education remains unproven, especially for students with academic or other challenges. And yet, both students and policymakers lack the data they need to assess whether online classes are…

This article presents the findings of a systematic qualitative analysis of research in the ethics of digital trace data use in learning and education. From the resulting analysis of 77 peer-reviewed studies, we (1) map the characteristics of research by study type, academic community, institutional setting, and national context; (2) identify the…

The Education Insights Center produced a series of reports culminating in recommendations for the structure and governance of a preschool through higher education and into the workforce (known as a P20W data system). This brief follows up on that series, with a focus on data quality; the brief was informed by the author's experience using…

As the higher education landscape has expanded beyond issues of access and affordability to include an emphasis on student completion and employment outcomes, accreditors can play a leadership role in advancing this important change. A shift to student success that rightfully centers in part on closing equity gaps between low-income students and…

Data quality has become a pressing issue for many campuses in recent years, as colleges struggle to extract timely, accurate, and consistent information from ever-proliferating institutional data sources in order to meet strategic decision-making and accountability demands. In this mixed methods study, a survey and semi-structured interviews were…

Advances in data science and computing power are rapidly shifting the opportunities available to citizens, changing how systems interact with almost every aspect of our lives: as students, job seekers, patients, citizens and consumers. This report presents the Annie E. Casey Foundation's point of view on the use of advanced analytics in social…

As state governments seek to improve the performance of institutions of K-12 and higher education, they often adopt educational policies that have similar names but different characteristics across states and with variations over time within states. Yet quantitative analyses generally examine the absence or presence of an educational policy…

Equity is emerging as a new frontier in the student success movement. But it's not enough to tackle higher education's deep equity divides by looking only at markers such as persistence, transfer, course credits, and DWF grades. True equity accountability depends on clarity about the key components of a quality education, especially the kinds of…

Education, Big Data, and student privacy are a combustible mix. The improvement of education and the protection of student privacy are key societal values. Big Data and Learning Analytics offer the promise of unlocking insights to improving education through large-scale empirical analysis of data generated from student information and student…

IPEDS graduation rates have become de facto means for higher education accountability in the United States, used by the federal government, state and local agencies, non-profits and media to compare and rank institutions. IPEDS uses a limited subset of students, as well as an institutional perspective to measure graduation rate. Under this model,…

Europe's knowledge economies need high-level skills, the capacity to innovate and to support democratic societies. In this perspective, the main objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the relevance of higher education and how this is promoted in various countries in Europe and beyond. The evidence, conclusions and…