It’s been a couple of very busy weeks around here. As I told a couple of folks I met at the High Ed Web and the SIM Tech conferences over these past 2 weeks, busy is the new black. Aren’t we all, lately?
Anyway, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the two amazing conferences I had the pleasure to attend and the topic that has been dear to my heart for those past 5 months: the higher ed analytics revolution.
My main take-away (besides a bad cold and a serious cough) from both conferences?
Social media has indeed changed everything for the better… and maybe a tiny bit of the worse.
Let’s start with the worse.
I remember getting all worked up to live blog the conference sessions I attended in the past, even recruiting ahead of time guest bloggers to get the work done when I couldn’t be there. The doteduguru team along with a few others have logged some great summaries (and Seth Odell from Higher Ed Live has done a great job compiling these and some video logs in the great tradition of Brad Ward and co back in 2008), but – blame it on Twitter and our constant craving for live updates – I feel as if we’ve lost a great deal of the content that used to be shared – and easily retrievable – on blogs.
Don’t get me wrong the backchannel is great, but I wish it were easier to actually retrieve tweets about a specific session more easily – you can search, but then after a certain period of time, everything seems to be lost in (cyber)space.
I’m guilty of that myself – and lately I even find it difficult to tweet during sessions. Am I really adding value by adding to the already busy (noisy?) chatter – and is there anybody out there reading these tweets (turns out there is as Patrick Powers has shown us for heweb10)?
Anyway, let’s move on to the better
Social media, and for our professional community mainly Twitter, has truly transformed the conference experience. You can now be part of a 365-day long conference on Twitter with folks sharing their tips, frustrations, success stories, resources, questions and more all year long. As a result higher ed conferences have now morphed into something closer to class reunions. I found myself catching up with the folks I follow on Twitter – sometimes even if I was meeting them IRL for the first time. Let’s say that most of the time, you can just skip the introductions and get to the core of the conversation. And, that’s great because anybody can join. You just need a Twitter account to be welcome by this great professional community.
Two years after writing my first column about Twitter for University Business, it looks like our community has definitely found a way to use this tool to connect across institutions.
Now, about the Higher Ed Analytics Revolution I decided to start this year.
I had the opportunity to present a poster session about the topic in Cincinnati, OH at the High Ed Web conference.
There I heard the difference the benchmarking survey reports made in the life of web professionals like you, that it gave them the extra push they needed to start using their analytics data or to ask their boss to free some time to work on it.
Then, last week at SIM Tech, I got the difficult job to give a presentation about the Higher Ed Analytics Revolution with Shelby Thayer just after the Master of Analytics, Avinash Kaushik – talk about a tough act to follow. In Las Vegas, armed with my jokes and my funny accent, I tried to get more folks to join the Analytics revolution and fill out the survey.
The interest for this initiative seems to be there – but the numbers (the data) aren’t good.
As of this morning, only 63 folks took the benchmarking survey (less than 50% of the folks who took it 2 months ago when we started).
So, what does it tell me?
- First, folks have been busy with conferences – which is why I postponed the deadline for this month to October 27 (this Wednesday)
- Second, folks don’t see analytics as a priority – but then, I’ve known that since we did the survey about the State of Higher Ed Analytics in May.
- Third, I need to find help to push the message (the gospel?) further – I’m trying to get a few higher ed analytics voices on board and blog about the topic at www.higheredanalytics.com. STAMATS has also offered to inform their clients about this initiative.
So, here’s my call to action for you:
- If you haven’t done it already this month, take the survey – this will be your way to tell me “keep this initiative alive, Karine.”
- If you want to share your success stories, struggles and tips about analytics in higher education, email me at karine@higheredanalytics.com. This is my official call for guest bloggers for the Higher Ed Analytics Blog. Seth Meranda and Shelby Thayer have already started to share some interesting insights there. Why not add your voice and your take to the conversation – in more than 140 characters for a change?
As I’ve explained to many folks for the past two weeks, I’m investing my time (and money) in this initiative because this is the right thing to do, but if the majority doesn’t want to take 10 to 15 minutes every month to share data for benchmarking purposes, I don’t think it will be smart to invest 10 to 15 hours of my time every month on it.
So, now would be a good time to tell me what you think and to take the survey at www.higheredanalytics.com.