Yesterday I spent the afternoon in a consultative workshop on the HE Information Landscape Project being run by HESA. The project is looking at data which is collected and returned to various statutory bodies by Universities, with the specific aims of reducing the current burden, improving the quality and timeliness of data and ensuring that data meets the needs of all users. There's been a lot of engagement with the community already, and a number of key issues are starting to emerge, and yesterday was an opportunity to test them out and get feedback. The participants were mainly planners - I think I was the token IT Director :-) - as it was generally felt that the technology is not the issue.
We spent quite a lot of time discussing what the "burden" around data actually is. My aim would be that we should be collecting, storing and providing data only once. Staff currently involved in providing data in multiple different formats to many organisations, and writing the systems to do so, would be better employed actually doing stuff that benefits students. There's many areas of duplication, and a suspicion that data is asked for on a "wants to know" basis, not "needs to know". A lively discussion took place on the KIS (Key Information Set), with the general view that although the principles behind it (giving students comparator information) has to be welcomed, it has been imposed too quickly, the data being provided has not been thought through from the prospective students' perspective, and there has been little consideration of how meaningful the data will actually be.
So, an interesting day and I did find it very useful being in a large group of people involved in planning. My own, personal view is that as a sector we should just start saying no occasionally when asked for data, especially as our reliance on some of these bodies for funding is decreasing rapidly. Not sure whether that will catch on though....
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