DESPITE THE CHALLENGES OF SECURITY, user education, and redundant records, a database can be a beautiful thing-not only in tracking prospective students through school until they become alumni, but also in streamlining processes, keeping tabs on financial goals, reducing repetitive data entry, and automating billing.
However, as many higher ed institutions are finding, a database is only as good as the reports that can be drawn from it. After all, there's utility in compiling information like the age of all professors, but there's even more in using that data to predict retirement so that new hiring drives can be started early.
As databases get more complex and departments begin building their own as well as relying on centralized databases, reporting functions also become more multilayered, with challenges all their own. Some colleges and universities are attempting to equip departments with their own database applications to take the pressure off IT, while others prefer to hire more reporting specialists to do technology support and respond to requests.
Either way, the issue of how to create accurate, consistent reports is affecting every institution of higher ed and driving the need for stronger reporting and more oversight of the reporting process.
"There's a cultural shift for a lot of schools around reporting," says Dwight Fischer, who has implemented information systems at three campuses within the University System of New Hampshire and serves as chief information officer at Plymouth State University. "With legacy systems, everyone wrote their own reports, but as institutions put in ERP systems, you were able to pull data from integrated databases and run reports off of that."
That transition caused IHEs to develop systems that aggregate data, but it has also led IT departments to wonder which is the best tactic: keeping reporting functionality centralized within IT, or using more tools for departments to write their own reports? At many institutions, the answer isn't clear. Rather, the blend of tactics shows that the question is likely to linger for some time.
Direct Reports
Reports generated from database systems can be crucial for creating a cohesive view of issues related to admissions, accounts payable, and development objectives. At an operational level, these reports can show information such as who has outstanding bills or who attended the latest fundraising event. At a higher level, data can be compiled for more complex tasks, such as determining what type of revenue is generated from research grants and how much of that funding has to be put toward expenses like equipment and research assistants.
The value of tailoring reports can be formidable, notes Andrew Lootens-White, director of Educational Technologies at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In the past, his department used an Excel spreadsheet to compile information and then put the document into a shared system. Whenever one person had the file open, no one else could access it, and reporting was basically done by printing out large sections of the spreadsheet.
"Obviously, we knew there had to be a better long-term solution," he says. Using a FileMaker application, the department was able to keep track of which faculty was teaching classes, how many were using technologies like Blackboard, and who was using online forums in their courses.
'The IT department knows some of the things we're involved in, but there are so many projects going on across campus that it can be hard to get support right way. So that's why I look to FileMaker instead, to do my own reports.' -Ann Marie McGinnis, Syracuse University
Using the reports generated from the data, Lootens-White was able to present his department chair with information that showed a significant number of professors were using online tools, sparking discussion on how to help other professors use the same technologies.
Beyond providing strategic directions, reports are also vital in meeting the federal government's call for institutions to be cognizant of and to start tracking learning outcomes.
"We have faculty committees working on educational plans, and outcomes are a big part of that because of the federal mandates," says Joanne Bossert, director of administrative computing at Oglethorpe University, near Atlanta. "We've been working on finding a way to track students in a way that ties to outcomes, and thinking about how to report on those results."
