Dear colleagues – 

October is a busy month in AIRE with multiple projects wrapping up and the conclusion of the Fall 2023 census process. Many of you will have seen the announcement regarding KU’s largest freshman class in history, with counts based on the student enrollment census snapshot AIRE captured on the 20th day of classes (September 18). But you may not know that on October 16, AIRE also produced an HR census snapshot.  

The census snapshot data represents our official numbers for students and HR. They are submitted to various surveys and data collections and are added to dashboards in OAC and Visual Analytics. We know how important these data are for your planning, so our Data Management and Official Reporting teams work to make them available to our campus community as soon as possible each year. 

These official numbers are also included in our public-facing KU Fact Book. KU’s Fact Book provides current, historical, and comparative data for a variety of subject areas, including enrollment, retention and completion, tuition and fees, employees, and financial expenditures. It is the best place for internal and external audiences to gain a quick overview of KU’s data in key metrics and longitudinal trends across the last 10 years. For a quick overview of current KU data, see also KU by the Numbers.

For other AIRE updates you should know about, please scroll down through this email. As ever, please do reach out to AIRE-Help@ku.edu if you have any questions. 

Very best wishes, 

Corinne Bannon  

Chief Data Officer and Vice Provost of AIRE 

Representatives from Academic Analytics will visit the Lawrence Campus on October 30 and 31 to meet with deans, chairs, and others with access to the Benchmarking tools. The main focus of the visit is to provide users with an overview of the Academic Analytics suite of resources and to discuss how they can be used to make decisions and inform strategies. Please consult the schedule to identify your relevant session. 

Faculty Insight Office Hours

All faculty are invited to attend Faculty Insight Office Hours on October 31, 10:00-11:30, at Alderson Hall in the Kansas Memorial Union. 

Please encourage faculty to drop by to explore, inquire, and learn more about our faculty activity management tool. 

Our Data Analytics team are hosting the next Open Lab on November 2, in the Watson Library. The aim of these labs is to answer questions and provide hands-on training related to enterprise-wide reports in OAC and Visual Analytics and OAC report-building functionality for campus users. To best address your needs, we encourage you to fill out a brief (optional) survey prior to attending. 

Fall Schedule

November 2, 3:00-4:30.

December 7, 3:00-4:30.

For the second year, AIRE is providing all deans and VPs with Strategic Alignment Briefing Books for each of KU Lawrence/Edwards Campus' schools and the College. The Strategic Alignment Briefing Books or SABBs are comprehensive data guides that collate data from multiple tools to help deans and VPs understand data related to key metrics that are in alignment with our Jayhawks Rising strategic priorities. These data guides will be made available to deans and VPs in early November and members of AIRE will present at the Provost’s All-Team meeting on November 7.

AIRE will also host a special AIRE Open Lab to help deans and VPs prepare for their strategic alignment presentations on November 15. More details will be shared soon.       

The new Academic Analytics Database for 2022 data (AAD2022.00.02432) was released on October 12. This new database includes the following enhancements:

- Three new data elements (book chapters, patents, and clinical trials)

- Enhanced calculation for the Scholarly Research Index (SRI)

- New methodology for including grants data over time

These changes have also gone into effect for all historical annual releases. Once in the portal, there is a short video and documentation that reviews these enhancements in more detail.

There is a new tool available to support your graduate student recruitment efforts. The Graduate Enrollment Funnel demonstrates how graduate students progress through various stages of the enrollment lifecycle, including: inquiry, applied, admitted, accepted, and enrolled. Users are able to filter by different demographic and program dimensions. The funnel is available in the Academics Recruitment tab in OAC. If you or colleagues in your unit would benefit from access to the funnel to support your recruitment and enrollment efforts, please complete the Graduate Studies Access form.  

AIRE has created a Campus Constituent Survey webpage to share the new Campus Constituent Survey process and a calendar of upcoming Campus Constituent Surveys. 

Campus Constituent Surveys are broad surveys that evaluate the experiences of the Lawrence/Edwards campus' core constituents: students, staff, and faculty. Data collected in these surveys help the university identify areas of strength and consideration that inform strategic planning and action. Core constituents will be surveyed every three years to ensure continuous improvement. 

Implementation teams composed of appropriate stakeholders, including University Governance, will start meeting three times a year to review the recommendations that arise out of each survey, and provide campus with updates and responses to the recommendations. The Employee Constituent Survey Implementation Team met for the first time on October 26.    

Great Colleges to Work For survey rescheduled for 2026

We had initially planned to administer the Great Colleges to Work For survey in Spring 2024. Due to extensive efforts by many to analyze results, further engage the campus community, and define recommendations based on the 2022 Docking Employee Satisfaction Survey process, we feel it prudent to focus on the implementation of these recommendations and reassess staff satisfaction and engagement in 2026.    

Spring 2024 Surveys

- National Survey of Student Experience (NSSE).

- Graduate Student Experience Survey (GSES).

The new FY24 Jayhawks Rising strategies (SSO required) are now available on the Jayhawks Rising website. These strategies were identified by the Objective Leaders at the Provost's leadership retreat (August 15-16). A summary progress report on the FY23 strategies (SSO required) is also available. The Objective Leaders meet three times a year to provide updates on their strategies and to identify opportunities for collaboration with the last round of meetings taking place on October 23.