Data Management: What An Adventure!

The longer I work in higher education, the more interesting the adventure!

During my time in higher education, we have seen the rise and fall of technology solutions, the expansion and consolidation of vendors, and the adaptability and resiliency of institutions and students. More recently, higher education began to discover the benefits of technology advancements like chatbots, embedded AI, and blockchain. Vendors are integrating these technologies into their products, and institutions are discovering how to use them to their benefit. In 2021, while vendors continue to make new technology available, many in their administrative system solutions, institutions are slowly learning how to operate within an industry that has experienced one of its biggest disrupters in the last 50 years. The terrain is challenging, and a new adventure awaits all of us.

But while we have navigated our way through each trend, evolution, and disrupter, one thing has remained consistent—data management has always been difficult. As institutions continue their move to the cloud, one of the biggest challenges our members face is building a more robust yet more nimble data management strategy that can serve an institution’s current needs and chart a path to their future. Technology leaders know that their institutional data can be an asset for many initiatives and strategies on campus. A valuable, broad data management program must coordinate across multiple campus departments, chart where data is stored, how it is used, assign who is responsible for input and output, all while ensuring that it is secure. And for most institutions, the task of getting started is often overwhelming.

Tambellini analysts are in several discussions with institutions about how data will affect their more extensive projects, like new technology selections or administrative systems planning. As IT leaders continue to ask for advice on strategies around reporting and analytics, integrations, and budget constraints—it leads them to even deeper discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of an institution’s data management program. Through these discussions and our continued research, we know that as higher education steps into a new adventure of supporting faculty, administration, and students in new environments, all things data—management, governance, security, and more—will become even more critical to its success.

As part of our commitment to higher education’s overall success, we are creating a set of tools that any institution can use to enhance the strategies and plans they have for data governance. This week, Tambellini is beginning to release data governance tools backed by research and the higher education expertise of our analysts. Our goal is to provide a guide for technology leaders as they create, develop, or enhance their data management program. We invite you to connect with us and use the tools no matter where you are in your own data management adventure.