Build and Support
a Data Literate Community
Build and Support a Data Literate Community
An Olympic coach realizes that the athletes, assistant coaches, judges, and fans all have different levels of understanding of the sport. And they should! For example, fans may not need to know every athlete’s stats like an assistant coach would, and some players will work to develop specialized skills to support team goals.
In the higher education data world, each stakeholder will have different needs when it comes to data literacy. Not everyone at an institution needs to be a data scientist, but every individual does need to understand how their role contributes to an institution-wide, data-informed, and analytics-enabled culture.
This is the goal of each of the plays in Build and Support a Data Literate Community. These plays are designed to help the data champion, in collaboration with colleagues, build and maintain data literacy skills across the institution. Some of the plays in this section are designed with specific stakeholder groups in mind, and others are more generally applicable. Data champions should run the plays that best support data users’ needs.
Team Plays
The Joint Statement on Analytics asserted that “analytics is a team sport.” Three plays that are repeated throughout the playbook emphasize and provide guidance for this.
The Assemble and Manage Teams for Analytics Initiatives play provides guidance to data champions, and perhaps executive sponsors, as they build the right teams for various analytics initiatives. This play can be conducted multiple times—for different analytics efforts or as needed with existing efforts.
The Executive Sponsor Checklist details the role of a senior leader before, during, and after analytics strategies or efforts.
Explore Typical Analytics Job Responsibilities is a resource for data and analytics positions in higher education.
Plays
Make Data-Informed Decisions
Tell a Story With Data
Help Data Consumers Understand Ethical Data Use
Work With Data Stewards to Reduce Bias
The Change With Analytics Playbook currently has 16 plays in total with five in the Build and Support a Data Literate Community section. Although these plays can help an institution make significant progress, there is other work to be done that is currently beyond the scope of this playbook.
We encourage you to join our community in continuing the development of the playbook. Please reach out to us (info@changewithanalytics.com) with suggestions for plays that should be added, alternate approaches to plays that have worked for your institutions, and examples of how these efforts have had propelled your efforts to support students and fulfill your college or university’s mission.