Ensuring the timely availability and effective use of reliable data is fundamental to the university's success in carrying out all aspects of its mission.
Decision makers and analysts across campus must have access to trusted institutional data—and the tools, training, and support they need to use it effectively—in order to assess outcomes and set strategic direction.
In recognition of this, the University of Iowa Strategic Plan for 2022 to 2027 established an objective to "Explore improvements in infrastructure—including people, processes, policies, and technology—to support faculty, staff, and campus leadership in using institutional data to plan, implement, and assess efforts to advance individual and institutional success." OneIT (the university's unified information technology organization comprising Information Technology Services and distributed IT organizations in the colleges and administrative units) has also established "data" as one of the four overarching goals of its strategic plan.
Implementing the data objective of the UI Strategic Plan is the charge of the Data SPARC (Strategic Plan Action and Resource Committee), which is jointly led by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost and Information Technology Services.
After an initial series of meetings with UI data stewards and users—and in combination with information gathered from previous assessment efforts—Data SPARC identified several areas where change initiatives might be focused, grouped under four closely interconnected themes:
Data Governance
Data Communication and Collaboration
Data Literacy
Data Infrastructure
The Data Hub web site is designed to support these themes by serving as the authoritative resource for information about:
- what institutional data, reports, and solutions are available, how to access them, and how to get help using them;
- data literacy and training options;
- data governance documentation; and
- opportunities to network with other data users through campus data communities.