Tennessee Higher Education and the Use of Decision Support Systems in Strategic Planning and Decision Making

Tennessee Higher Education and the Use of Decision Support Systems in Strategic Planning and Decision MakingJeff HindsPRST6998 Professional ProjectDecember 11, 2013

Abstract

Business Intelligence products and processes have helped public and private organization to identify opportunities and trends that are both internal and external. For years the concepts of Business Intelligence, data mining, “Big” data, have become an important part of strategic planning and decision making within many successful organizations. Higher education has been expressing the importance of research, statistical analysis, data modeling, and business decisions based on good information. In fact, higher education institutions have created entire academic programs around these topics. While this information is written and reported within professional periodicals and events, the question stands about how higher education is taking advantage of business intelligence as part of their strategic planning and decision making processes.

Introduction

Why this topic? Professional background

The M.P.S. program and its influence

What resources were used for this topic? Academic

Professional

Personal

What was my purpose for this study? Professional background

Personal interest

Introduction

Purpose of the study

Determine if decision support systems are being used by higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee

How Decisions Support Systems (DSS) can benefit higher education institutions within the state of Tennessee

Introduction

Public and Private Sector businesses

Higher Education

Product or service development Program and degree offerings

Product sales and advertisements Student recruitment

Talent management Recruitment of qualified instructors

Operating procedures Process management

Payment from customers for products or services

Payments for tuition, fees, and services

Payments to vendors for products and services (electric, water, materials, equipment, etc.)

Payments to vendors for products and services (electric, water, equipment, communications, etc.)

Stake holders Board of Trustees

Regulatory requirements (taxes, auditor, etc.)

Regulatory requirements (taxes, auditor, etc.)

Competition Competition

Why Decision Support Systems?

Higher education share a number of commonalities with business organizations.

Review of Literature

Types of sources reviewed

Peer reviewed journal articles

Non-Peered reviewed articles

Industry periodical publications

Professional lectures and symposiums presentations

Online webinars and seminar presentations

Course offering from many higher education institutions

Commercial and non-commercial web sites

Doctoral Dissertations

“Think Tank” white papers and articles


Type of sources that were used Journal articles from multiple industries and disciplines

Books

References from Newspapers

Commercial and Non-Commercial web sites

Doctoral Dissertations

“Think Tank” white papers and articles

Some of the sources that ware not used Interviews and discussions

Books from previous courses

Online webinars and seminar presentations

Professional lectures and symposiums presentations

Professional consultants specializing in leadership

Course offerings from many higher education institutions


Examples of source used: Callery, C. A. (2012). DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING IN

COMMUNITY COLLEGES: AN INTEGRATIVE MODEL FOR INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS. Dissertations.

Mayer-Schonberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013). Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Boston New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Power, D. J. (1995-2013). A Brief History of Decision Support Systems. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2012, from Decision Support Systems Resources: http://dssresources.com/history/dsshistoryv28.html

Rowley, J. (2000). Is higher education ready for knowledge management? International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 14 Iss: 7, 325 - 333.


Examples of source not used:

Briggs, L. L. (2006). Data-Driven Decision-Making >> Data Pioneers. Retrieved from Campus Technology: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2006/10/datadrivendecisionmaking--data-pioneers.aspx

Data-Driven Decision Making: A Powerful Tool for School Improvement. (2004). Minneapolis, Minnesota: Sagebrush Corporation.

Petersen, N. J., Davies, R. S., & Spitzer, B. (2006). Improving Data Driven Decision Making through Assessment Literacy for Respondents. Educational Research and Review Vol. 1 (8), 267-271.

Definitions of Variables

BI - Business Intelligence.

DSS - Decision Support Systems.

ETL - extract, translate, and load.

IPEDS - Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

Definitions of Variables

Decision Support Systems including Data modeling

business intelligence/analytics

data interpretation services

Data Mining

Predictive analysis

Example Technologies include Databases

Data Warehouses and ETL

Data Cubes and Pivot Tables

Commercial and open source analytical tools SAS

SPSS

DataHero

BigML

MADlib

Other Information Sources

U.S. Department of Education

Professional webinars and seminars

Discussions with Data Warehousing and Business Intelligent professions

Discussions with Higher Education Information Technology leadership

Method of Investigation

Planning a survey

What questions to ask (purpose of this survey)

Who should be included

How long should the survey be available

How to conduct the survey or collect the information


The survey - What information to ask?

Does the institutions use any form of Decision support system in for strategic planning and operations?

How important would you rate the information in the decision making process?

Is the information used for strategic planning and measuring?

What type of information is being used or defined?


The survey - Who should be included?

Time constraints

Is there any evidence that decisions support systems are being used in higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee

Possible participants

Selection of a intended population


Usage of IPEDS data U. S. Department of Education

Method of InvestigationIPEDS data from the U. S. Department of Education




Data from College Navigator






Possible participants

All institutions?

Public Institutions

Private institutions

4-Year or 2 Year institutions


National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there are 190 Higher Education institutions in the State of Tennessee

48 public institutions (25.26% of total higher education institutions) 9 are 4 year institutions (18.75% of public institutions)

39 are 2 year institutions (81.25% of public institutions)(Community Colleges and Tennessee Technology Centers)

142 private institutions (74.74% of total higher education institutions)

90 private for-profit (63.38% of private institutions)

52 private non-profit (36.62% of private institutions)

Note: Some institutions reported by NCES are duplicated as one institution may offer 4-year, 2-year, and < 2-year programs and are counted in each classification.


Selection of an intended population

Time constraints

Current scope

Target organizations

All public 4-year institutions in the state of Tennessee


This would limit the target population to 9 organizations:

Austin Peay State University

East Tennessee State University

Middle Tennessee State University

Tennessee State University

Tennessee Technological University

The University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

The University of Tennessee-Martin

University of Memphis


Communications with Institutions

Email

Follow up communications


Survey delivery method

Paper

Electronic email

Web site

Method of InvestigationSurvey collection method





Survey Process

Allow the survey to be open for a defined period of time

Invite the target population to participate

Scheduled follow up communications

Close the survey and review the results


Possible Results

institutions that respond included complete information on the survey

institutions that respond with only some or partial information

the response data will consist of both complete and partial information

all institutions choose not to participate in the survey.


Results at the end of survey period

No responses where submitted.

The survey is completely voluntary.

This is a valid possible result to the survey.


After the survey was closed

Communications from one of the institutions about participating.

Zero participation in the survey was determined to be incomplete for the study.

Survey was reopened

Addition email communications to invite organizations to participate in the survey.

Phone communications to follow up the email communications


Second review of responses

A total of 4 responses submitted

Preferred number of submitted responses for the review

Number of responses that used validation code

How responses were verified

Findings

Basic observations about the survey

the time that the survey is available for institutions to participate should be longer.

information about the survey window should be included and stated clearly in the invitation communication.

the invitation communication to the target population may receive a better response if the communication was communicated with someone other than the senior decision maker, president/chancellor, of the organization.

while attempting to keep the initial communications with the target population short, more information about the study and its purpose should be included.

because of the limited responses that have been submitted, the use of the verification code was note needed

Findings

Population size(9 public 4-year institutions)

Survey Return rate 44.4% (4 returns / 9 members in the population)

Margin of error 33.3% (1 / SqRoot of members in the population )

75% of those that responded to the survey are utilizing some form of decision support system within their organization for strategic planning and operations.

50% of the respondents indicated they are neutral to the importance of the information from the decision support system in the decision making process.

there is evidence that would support that some of the four-year public higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee is using some form of decision support system in their strategic planning and operational processes.

Findings

How the information is used:

“[c]ritical for strategic planning and institutional effectiveness”,

“… important, because we use it to monitor implementation of our plan and to assess the results…”,

“… used mainly to show process toward strategic objectives.”

Conclusions

There is a total of 78 four-year higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee that report a combined enrollment greater than 240,000 students.

This study is not sufficient to draw any conclusions about the use of decision support systems for strategic planning in higher education within the state of Tennessee.

This study does indicate that further studies would be justified to determine how decision support systems are being used in the strategic planning and decision making processes

Questions

AcknowledgementsWithout the support of my wife, family, and friends, this program and project would not have been possible. This has been a difficult journey trying to balance family, work, and school. Many times it seems there was no balance. Either work or school would take priority leaving very little time for anything else. Many times my friends and family would provide support with listening and ideas when I was looking for additional information or places to find information. My wife has been a rock that has kept me grounded in my studies throughout this program. She has helped me keep on track when I had doubts about myself or what I was attempting to accomplish when I enrolled in the program. My son and daughter have been very patient and supportive with a quick joke for me to go and do my homework. Sounds funny coming from a high school kid directed to their “Padre”.

Thank youTo my review committee, instructors, and advisors, thank you for your time, effort and advice at the beginning and throughout the entire program. Your assistances has been invaluable.