University Analytics and Institutional Research (UAIR)
UAIR provides timely information and analyses that support data-informed decision-making at the university; develops and extends Flagship Analytics, the University's analytics platform; cultivates and supports data exploration; and completes mandatory reporting. With campus partners, we care for university data by attending to issues of quality, consistency, governance, and privacy.
Public Dashboards and Data
We provide dashboards on basic student (undergraduate and graduate), faculty, and staff information for all campus users and the public. The data in the public dashboards is complemented by factsheets and data tables, the Common Data Set (CDS), and institutional resources.
Flagship Analytics
This is UMass Amherst’s analytics platform to augment decision making at the university. The platform includes validated and/or official data extracts/models used for analysis, data integration and Tableau data dashboards. .
Any faculty or staff member can access a core set of dashboards via analytics.umass.edu and using their NetID and login (off-campus use requires VPN).
With FERPA certification and additional training, faculty and staff can access an extensive suite of dashboards that includes information such as student enrollment and success metrics, basic faculty and staff data, and research and grant information.
Adding new data sources and developing new dashboards is an essential and ongoing activity for the UAIR team. We also develop custom dashboards or provide datasets and analyses in response to information and analysis requests.
Data access follows the UMass data security and privacy policies and uses the data steward model.
Reporting and Analysis
UAIR collaborates with on- and off-campus organizations to do additional work such as:
- Reporting official campus metrics on students, faculty and staff and completing the Common Data Set (CDS);
- Completing official reports for the University system as well as state and federal compliance (e.g. IPEDS);
- Responding to college guide questionnaires (e.g., Princeton Review), university and departmental rankings (e.g., U.S. News), and surveys about faculty and salaries (e.g., AAUP);
- Ensuring accuracy and reliability of faculty teaching data used in the Instructional Activity System (IAS);
Supporting campus-wide and national surveys (e.g., National Survey of Student Engagement [NSSE]) conducted by Assessment, Survey, and Effectiveness Research (ASER) and Student Affairs