Student privacy is a critical area of higher education that deserves greater focus, particularly as student data digitalization increases. Many colleges and universities use data literacy as a way to prepare students, sometimes from different disciplines, to work with others' data postgraduation. Data literacy can be an avenue for helping all…

Big data is an important part of innovation that has recently attracted a lot of interest from academics and practitioners alike. Given the importance of the education industry, there is a growing trend to investigate the role of big data in this field. Much research has been undertaken to date in order to better understand the use of big data in…

Students, families, colleges, and lawmakers need clearer information on postsecondary outcomes to make informed decisions. By leveraging data available at institutions and federal agencies, a nationwide student-level data network (SLDN) would close information gaps that persist in our higher education landscape to answer critical questions about…

Missing values that fail to be appropriately accounted for may lead to reduced statistical power, biased estimators, reduced representativeness of the sample, and incorrect interpretations and conclusions (Gorelick, 2006). The current study provided an ontological perspective of data manipulation by explaining how statistical results can…

Inclusivity in data reports for undocumented students can be difficult to achieve. By nature of those students' status and livelihood, there is contention among academics and practitioners on whether this is a population that should not be formally tracked or identified, for a variety of reasons. Concerns about tracking arise because of the…

This guidebook is designed for institutional leaders and student success teams who are ready to talk openly about the students they serve and who are eager to learn practical strategies from national experts and peer institutions. We cannot design an experience that meets our students where they are unless we holistically understand who they are.…

Employers are demanding higher skilled and better educated workers. Yet employer sentiment and the high default rate on student loans suggests a mismatch between the programs students are completing and the work they are able to find. To report on trends in postsecondary education, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) mostly relies on surveys of…