Data: The Nervous System of the Organisation

With the advent of agile organisations, big data and becoming more responsive to customer need, using and understanding data is more important than ever. 

These days colleges have pretty sophisticated systems to manage their libraries, HR, teaching and learning, customer relations, VLE, registry, website, etc. The key question is how the organisation can make use of the data flowing through these systems to better understand the college and the world around them to improve services. What are the key issues facing data managers in education seeking to meet these challenges?

Jisc Regional Support Centre London decided to find out: 

Key topics for IS college staff – 2014

 

Jisc RSC London carried out a survey with selected Information Services staff in colleges to find out what are their key topics in 2014.

 

Following these results RSC London has organised an event to explore ‘strategically managing data’ and ‘reporting and dashboards’. The event will take place 20^th March at Senate House and will consist of a facilitated discussion to explore current best practice among participating colleges.
If you would like to take part please contact Martin Sepion m.sepion@rsc-london.ac.uk  

 

The original list of topics was:

1.       Systems integration – share ideas about how best to achieve manageable systems integration e.g. data is only entered once

2.       MI Team performance – following on from self-assessment theme from last year – how do you show the rest of the college how good you are – could we add metrics? An SLA? Could we

          add external/peer assessment?

3.       Developing a plan for managing data strategically across the organisation – MIS as an enabler of a more agile organisation

4.       Building and managing an MIS team – what skills do you need to run a successful MIS team? What team structure works? We could look at JD’s and person specs and interview  

          questions and staff appraisal and training

5.       Cost effective systems – what are the best systems for the money – developing, procuring, replacing and implementing systems

6.       Reporting and dashboards – what is current best practice?

7.       Modelling and planning – how to provide the ‘crystal ball’ for SMT

8.       Presenting a paper to SMT – how to get support for your project or plan