Data Don't Drive: Building a Practitioner-Driven Culture of Inquiry to Assess Community College Performance

Subject: student success
Date: 2005-12-01
This is a report to the Lumina Foundation on a study it commissioned to look into community college uses of institutional data.  It's written by Alicia Dowd (currently of Equity Scorecard).  From the executive summary:  "Too often, accountability policies require institutions to report data that are never actually used to guide decisions at the institutional or state levels. Because of this lost opportunity, the value of these efforts is often more symbolic than practical. To address this problem, the report says, “data-based decision-making” strategies must view campus-based practitioners — including academic and student services administrators, institutional researchers, faculty members and senior leaders — not only as decision makers, but also as potential agents of change."