Most of us have read or heard about the Tower of Babel, and the Babylonians’ lofty intentions of building a tower to heaven. Those intentions were never realized because God created multiple, diverse languages so the workers could no longer talk to one another. Communication broke down and chaos ensued.
Does your institution rely on higher education data technology and analytics? Does this sound oddly familiar? Data can be frustrating, but big data and analytics are not inherently bad. To be competitive and timely in our industry’s ever-changing ecosystem, they are, in fact, absolutely necessary. However, they can be rendered useless when “the workers” don’t talk to one another, and the data isn’t used well, is used as a weapon, or is seen as a panacea for larger ills.
There are five common problems facing most higher ed institutions, and we’re laid out some of the most common among them.
