About University Data & Analytics

Mission

Our mission is to provide data, expertise, analyses, and staffing necessary to support the University's planning, institutional research, and university assessment committees and processes.

University Data & Analytics (UDA) supports the University's leaders and strategic planning processes by providing objective, accurate, and timely information, analysis, and advice to inform decision-making and resource allocation processes. In addition, the Office conducts studies that describe, analyze, and evaluate the operations and outcomes of the University and maintains an electronically accessible database of institutional trends.

Responsibilities and Activities

University Data & Analytics serves several internal and external constituencies. UDA is the source for official university statistics, based on our databases of student and employee data.

Internal Requests

University Data & Analytics provides statistics for a wide on-campus constituency, such as students writing class reports or ASMSU proposals, faculty developing grant proposals or trend studies for particular courses, and administrators planning resource allocation. UDA works closely with the Registrar's Office, the Office of Student Success, HumanResources, the Office of Institutional Equity, Career Services, Athletics, Admissions, and Communications and Public Affairs to design research projects, provide data, and conduct analyses.

University Data & Analytics provides information for the shared governance Councils created by the President. This information comes in the form of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for academic departments, Delaware Study for comparative cost and productivity data, and other ad hoc reports.

External Requests

UDA provides data for over 100 surveys sent to MSU annually. Off-campus requestors of institutional statistics include local news media, the Commissioner for Higher Education, the Governor's Office of Budget and Program Planning, federal agencies, and other colleges and universities. UDA regularly prepares reports for the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the College and University Professionals Association (CUPA), the Delaware Studies of Instructional Costs/Productivity and of Faculty Activity, and Oklahoma State University's annual faculty salary survey (accessible only to MSU). The Common Data Set (CDS), a format developed by four major guidebook publishers, which has become the de facto standard for basic college reporting, is available online.

University Data & Analytics reports to the President, and the Chief Data Officer is a member of the President's Executive Council.

 University Data & Analytics Staff

	Jason Browning, Ph.D. Chief Data Officer, jason.browning@montana.edu Provide leadership and guidance for University Data & Analytics Develop and propose policies, procedures, and/or new initiatives designed to enhance the processes and outcomes of various activities including enrollment management, space management, strategic priority action plans, annual operating budgets, institutional effectiveness and efficiency, and assessment of return on program investments Collaborate with campus CEOs and IR professionals on four-campus solutions for planning and institutional research needs Direct the collection, analysis, and presentation of institutional and/or comparative data that are used to support and enhance policy formation and decision-making Direct the reporting of all institutional data required by Federal, State, and accreditation agencies and the Board of Regents as well as by campus administrators and committees Design statistical strategies for answering questions about Montana State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni Consult on survey design and analysis for campus constituents
	Ian C.P. Godwin, Ed.D. Associate Director, igodwin@montana.edu Serve as a resource for planning, analysis, and data reporting for the President and Vice Presidents, the University’s governance councils and committees, and other decision-makers and university programs Direct and participate in the collection and reporting of data on progress on the University’s Strategic Plan and NWCCU Accreditation Oversee, implement and/or participate in the collection, analysis, and presentation of institutional and/or comparative data that are used to support and enhance planning, budgeting, policy, and other decision-making Serve as university administrator for Watermark Faculty Success (faculty productivity reporting tool) Consult on survey design and analysis for campus constituents
	Rebecca Belou, M.P.A. Associate Director for Administrative Partnering, rebeccabelou@montana.edu Responsible for delivering appropriate data and analytics-based support and solutions to MSU's administrative, research, and student success functions. UDA Contact for the Delaware Studies, CUPA-HR, OSU, GSS, and other employee surveys Provide a variety of ad hoc and term-by-term reports that present academic, human resource, and financial data for an assortment of committees, departments, and faculty members as well as other extramural requestors for MSU information Maintain Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and Department Dashboard reports Design statistical strategies for answering questions about Montana State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni
	Mary Kate Blake, Ph.D. Data Governance Manager, marykate.blake@montana.edu Establish data-quality frameworks and collaborate with business units to define data governance standards. Work across campus to identify new and disparate data sources. Analyze and assess business processes and their relationships to institutional data. Coordinate data audit and cleanup activities to increase the accuracy of institutional data in the ERP and other systems. Administratively lead institutional data governance committees and task forces (generally chaired by the Chief Data Officer).
	Vincent Liang, M.S. Data Scientist Primary UDA contact for HR/employee data Develop and maintain Human Resources metrics and indicators related to: Head-count, Job-count, and FTE Sums; Compensation; Hiring; Turnover; Demographics; Job-type classification Fulfill HR data requests related to: Ad-hoc internal projects; Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education (OCHE) reporting; State and Federal reporting; Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests Data wrangler, visualizer, and pipeline developer
	Tonya Lauriski-Karriker, Ph.D. Senior Data Scientist, tonya.lauriski@montana.edu Identify student populations for various student success programs and research projects Develop statistical models for prediction of student outcomes Implement analyses to evaluate and answer questions about Montana State University programs and students Build and maintain reports to track program metrics and other student related outcomes
	Leonardo Valladares, M.S. Senior Data Scientist, leonardo.valladares@montana.edu Provide ad hoc analytical support on request and in collaboration with requester, UDA staff, and other university offices Design statistical strategies for answering questions about Montana State University faculty, staff, students, and alumni Create and maintain both internal and public-facing visualizations to highlight institutional trends over time Prepare standard federal, state, and university reports