Data Strategy 101: How to Gather, Analyze, and Use Data

'Dimeji Togunde, PhD, is the first to acknowledge that his academic background is different from many of his peers in international education. With bachelor’s and master’s degrees in statistics, Togunde says he finds it second nature to “collect data and use it as a tool” in his role as vice provost for global education at Spelman College. Knowing how to collect and use data is a skill international education professionals say is increasingly important as institutions are looking for areas of the budget to trim as they face financial challenges.

“There was this assumption that whatever we did was good—that any sort of study abroad [experience] almost magically produced changes in students,” says Melissa Whatley, PhD, a postdoctoral research scholar at North Carolina State University. “We have to be more intentional, particularly in times like now where funding is scarce and you can’t travel internationally, to justify why international education exists.”

International education scholars have always worked with data—consider mobility numbers and the Open Doors data that aggregate them to reveal global trends. But experts say there is an opportunity to dig deeper, tapping new sources of information and using them in new ways to advocate for programs. Here are a few ways to think about developing a data strategy that serves these needs.

1. Identify your priorities—and your institution’s.

One possible first step, says Whatley, is to check your program website, where objectives are often stated clearly and explicitly. Then step back and do the same with the institution’s website