Some data definition issues appear to require fuller campus discussion and consensus. As we discussed at the Retreat, a functional analysis of job duties will help clarify the issue. For data reporting projects such as The Delaware Study , where the central issues are teaching loads and instructional costs, it makes no sense to include librarians in the FTE count, even though they have faculty status at the University of South Carolina. There may well be other projects where instruction is not at the core and a more robust faculty FTE is desirable, and inclusion of librarians would make sense. The bottom line is that the data broker, i.e., Institutional Planning and Assessment, is in the best position to make these judgments, and to appropriately footnote faculty counts to clarify inclusions and exclusions.
Data quality is enhanced when resources are tied to that quality.
At the University of Delaware, the accuracy of the course registration file increased by several orders of magnitude once it became clear that resource allocation and reallocation decisions were tied to the quality of teaching load data. Once the campus is aware that the quality of data is, in fact, tied to resources, there is greater incentive to ensure that information is correct. In looking at the various areas of data management at the University of South Carolina, it is clear that there needs to be some sense of prioritization of issues addressed. There are multiple options for how these priorities might be established. On my campus, data priorities are established by the President, Provost, and Executive Vice President.