Do you want to find better ways to leverage your IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) data for your office and institution? Though you can’t become an IPEDS expert overnight, you can become more proficient using and reporting the data. And improving your or your staff’s understanding of IPEDS may help improve reporting and research accuracy and efficiency in the long run.
Do you know where your data is?
IPEDS data doesn’t just stay at the National Center for Education Statistics. There are a number of public places that data can surface—and not only for regulatory use.
“That information also serves as representative information for your institution,” said Kristina Powers, Associate Vice President of Institutional Research Services, Bridgepoint Education, and IPEDS Trainer. “It appears in more places than you think. The public has access to it—that means students and parents; journalists and columnists—even private organizations can use it for research, taking that data and adding their own unique data, repackaging and repurposing to create new information.”
“Other entities may be leveraging IPEDS data in new ways that you haven’t considered” Powers said. “This IPEDS workshop will expose participants to some of the organizations that use IPEDS data as well as discuss interpretation of the data through benchmarking analyses.”
For example, IPEDS data are used to populate College Navigator’s information about estimated student expenses, programs/majors, enrollment, retention rates, instructional staff, financial aid, graduation rates, admissions, servicemembers and veterans benefits. Understanding how and where the IPEDS data is used may help improve the accuracy of your responses.
Fixing broken data
In addition, if you understand the way IPEDS collects information, you can better troubleshoot problems such as inaccurate numbers, missing or extra degree programs, and so on.
“For example, if an institution offers a new degree program, they need to enter the program, code, title—and note right away there are no graduates in the new program in the Completions Survey,” said Erez Lenchner, Senior Institutional Researcher at CUNY LaGuardia Community College and IPEDS trainer. “Otherwise, when the information in College Navigator is updated, the program won’t show up.”
Institutions need to understand the benefits of caveats in each reporting to help mitigate these kinds of issues. In addition, understanding the relationships between agencies using the data can help you know where to turn for help if you find inaccuracies.
How to benchmark
“What is comparable and not comparable?” said Lenchner. “Every institution is unique in some way, but we need to find the common ground for useful comparison.”
For example, if all institutions offer a similar degree in a similar program in a similar geographic area, they can be compared.
“When using IPEDS data, it’s important to understand the dos and don’ts of building a comparison group,” he said.
What are your questions?
Powers and Lenchner are leading an IPEDS workshop prior to AACRAO’s Technology and Transfer Conference this July, and participants are encouraged to bring in their own benchmarking questions.
During the six-hour workshop, participants will work in small teams to learn how the IPEDS data gets into the system as well as extract and understand the data relevant to their questions.
“It’s a hands-on, participatory workshop,” Powers said. “They’ll get their hands into the IPEDS data through laptops that participants bring.” Participants will also become more familiar with the IPEDS website and learn about tools and information they can access after the workshop.
Reserve your seat for the IPEDS Pre-Meeting Workshop, offered at NO CHARGE to Technology and Transfer Conference participants, Sunday, July 10, from 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Advanced registration is limited to 45 participants and workshop seats are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Register now for AACRAO’s Technology and Transfer Conference in Anaheim, California, July 10-12, 2016.