This article explores potential uses, misuses, beneficiaries, and tensions of learning analytics in higher education. While those promoting and using learning analytics generally agree that ethical practice is imperative, and student privacy and rights are important, navigating the complex maze of ethical dilemmas can be challenging, particularly…

Capital appropriations are an important but often forgotten component of the public contribution to funding higher education. In fiscal year 2021, nearly $13 billion was appropriated for capital projects at public institutions, representing 11.6% of the total state contribution to higher education. When compared to general operating support and…

The essay briefly outlines the history of community engagement at DePaul University in order to explore how and why universities and colleges are increasingly adopting data collections systems for tracking community engagement. I explore the question of why there is a growing interest in tracking engagement within the academy and suggest that…

Generating, collecting, and analyzing building usage statistics can greatly increase the ability of an access services unit to meet the changing dynamic of patron needs in an academic library. By analyzing three different data points, the Access Services Unit in Malpass Library at Western Illinois University was able to determine the most…

Institutional leaders, educators, and policymakers are challenged to improve educational outcomes for all students, including Latinos. "Excelencia" in Education responds to this challenge by linking research, policy, and practice that supports higher educational achievement for Latino students. Premier in this effort is Examples of…

The importance of college degree completion for U.S. society and economic competitiveness makes it imperative to improve educational outcomes for Latino students. Institutional leaders, educators, and policymakers who recognize this imperative are challenged to determine what they can do to improve educational outcomes for Latino students.…

By 2025, 22 percent of the U.S. college-age population will be Latino, a level already exceeded in four states: California, Florida, New York, and Texas. However, today, only seven percent of Latinos ages 18 to 24 have an associate's degree or higher compared to 9 percent of African Americans, 16 percent of white, and 25 percent of Asians of the…

This generation of young people is on track to be less-educated than their parents--for the first time in American history. This, at the same time the world and workplace are changing dramatically and rapidly--when students, more than ever, need high levels of skill in order to compete. Advance Illinois has developed this report "We Can Do…

This paper contains executive summaries of the productivity-quality efforts of nine independent Illinois colleges and universities. The summaries typically include descriptions of the type of student population served, the type of campus, the institution's mission statement, and major areas in which degrees are offered. Specific initiatives to…

The kind of data useful to a statewide planning agency is considered, with focus on Illinois, and attention is directed to the use of these data once generated, including resulting problems. Illinois is currently engaged in the conceptual design of a computerized management information system that will contain as a subset the State Level…

This study analyzed data from the Illinois Shared Enrollment and Graduation Information System concerning attendance and graduation patterns of two groups: students who entered Illinois public universities as first-time freshmen between 1987 and 1992 and students who had graduated from Illinois public universities by spring 1998. Major findings…

As part of its Priorities, Quality, and Productivity (PQP) initiative, the Illinois State Board of Higher Education asked institutions to address issues associated with faculty roles and responsibilities. This paper describes the statewide information collected, how the data are used in Board reports, and how improved data collection might…

In an effort to examine student transfer behavior from Oakton College (OC) in Des Plaines, Illinois, to public universities in the state, OC obtained from the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE), a dataset of all students who received a bachelor's degree from an Illinois public university between 1980 and 1988, and then matched social…

By 2025, 22 percent of the U.S. college-age population will be Latino, a level already reached in four states: California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Meeting the country's future human capital and workforce needs make it imperative to improve outcomes for Latino students today. As public attention is focused on current achievement gaps,…

The objectives of this study were (1) to obtain annual records on the first full-time career positions obtained by all agriculture graduates from the 2-year and 4-year Illinois education institutions offering a degree in agriculture, (2) to assemble data in a manner that would show the marketability of graduates from the various professional…