Getting Schooled on the Need for Data Integration

A new study suggests that institutions of higher learning need to do cross-department data integration to remain competitive. In fact, 87 percent of administrators feel the imperative to do that within the next five years.

Ellucian, which provides software and services to colleges and universities, sponsored the research. Wakefield Research conducted the study, which gathered information from 300 admissions and recruitment team members, 500 college students, and 502 alumni that have graduated in the past five years. The institutions surveyed included two- and four-year institutions, both private and public.

“Today’s students expect seamless personalized experiences from nearly every organization they come in contact with––whether they realize it or not,” says Ellucian Senior Strategic Consultant Katie Lynch-Holmes. “These expectations and actual experiences influence their choice of institution, long-term loyalty, and future giving.”

The study also reports that:

• 87 percent of students who get personalized communications during the application process consider that an important factor in their school selection;

• 95 percent of advisors want more complete information on students’ academic, financial, and student life data; and

• 95 percent of advancement officials think they would have better alumni relationship if they had access to more data across the student lifecycle.

Getting more detailed and personalized communications from their school also has a significant impact on alumni giving, the report suggests. “Eighty five percent of alumni said they would donate more often if they knew their money was funding organizations or initiative they were involved with as students,” Ellucian says. “Fifty-one percent who receive requests say less than 10 percent of those inquiries are tied to their personal interests or past campus activities.”

Data integration and analysis is being important for organizations across an array of disciplines and industry verticals. For example, customer service and marketing teams are working to bring together data from different sources so they can better understand and cater to customers. And new tools, like AIOps solutions, now help IT teams collect, aggregate, visualize, analyze, and act on what’s happening in enterprise networks and with business applications.

Edited by Maurice Nagle