Data Literacy Information

The goals of the Data Literacy Corner are to (1) provide a central landing area with data definitions, resources, videos and materials and (2) promote understanding and use of institutional data.

If you are unable to find a data element definition you are searching for, please contact us.

In January 2017, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina unanimously approved Higher Expectations, a five-year Strategic Plan for the UNC System. The Plan calls on the UNC System to achieve ambitious goals in access, student success, affordability and efficiency, economic impact and community engagement, and institutional excellence.

Progress on these goals and metrics will be achieved through the hard work and commitment of institutional leaders, faculty, and staff. In that spirit, North Carolina Central University has identified these contributions that North Carolina Central University aspires to make to the UNC Strategic Plan over the next five years.

• Most measures used for Administrative Outcomes for Academic Programs are available online through the OIRA website, Eagle Analytic, Insight dashboards (internal only) and Tableau Public dashboards.
• The NCCU Factbook includes data on student demographics, enrollment, degrees awarded and faculty-staff data. Links to the individual sections of the Factbook can be found at https://www.nccu.edu/orep/institutional-studies.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, traditional students (students between the ages of 17–21 who attend four-year colleges and live on campus) make up nearly 15% of the undergraduate population. The remaining 85% of students are considered post-traditional and are a diverse group of adult learners, full-time employees, caregivers for dependents, low-income students, students who commute to school, working parents and individuals who serve in the military. Post-traditional learners are students who frequently must balance life, work, and their education.  While the U.S. Department of Education uses the term “non-traditional,” many researchers prefer the term “post-traditional” since it recognizes these students for the “value-added” they bring to their colleges.

Sources: https://pnpi.org/post-traditional-students/ and https://www.acenet.edu/Research-Insights/Pages/Student-Support/Post-Traditional-Learners.aspx

• University of North Carolina System Level
  • UNC Student Data Mart (SDM) presents student, course, instructor and related data for the UNC System.  Data is supplied by constituent institutions.  The data collected supports not only mandatory education reporting requirements but also planning, analysis, and assessment efforts at the central (System Office) and campus levels.
  • UNC HR Data Mart (HRDM) was developed by UNC System Office to provide standardized, summary HR data for all UNC campuses and the System Office.
• National/Federal Level Reports
  • National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.
  • The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), conducted by the NCES, began in 1986 and involves annual institution-level data collections. All post-secondary institutions that have a Program Participation Agreement with the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE), U.S. Department of Education (throughout IPEDS referred to as "Title IV"), are required to report data using a web-based data collection system. IPEDS currently consists of the following components: Institutional Characteristics (IC); 12-month Enrollment (E12); Completions (C); Admissions (ADM); Student Financial Aid (SFA); Human Resources (HR) composed of Employees by Assigned Position, Fall Staff, and Salaries; Fall Enrollment (EF); Graduation Rates (GR); Outcome Measures (OM); Finance (F); and Academic Libraries (AL).
• Banner: Banner is the institution's enterprise-level information system, comprising the student information system, the financial information system, and the human resources information system. BANNER is the institution's system of record.
• Headcount: Total number of students enrolled at a particular point in time; usually taken at census date.
• Fall Cohort: Group of students entering in the fall term established for tracking purposes. For the Graduation Rates component, this includes all students who enter an institution as full-time, first-time degree or certificate-seeking undergraduate students during the fall term of a given year.
• API: Academic program inventory. Through statutory authority, UNC’s Board of Governors may authorize the establishment of new degree programs and the discontinuation of existing degree programs. All degree programs authorized by the Board can be found using the Program and Degree Finder.
• CIP Code: Each program of study has a specific Classification of Instructional Program code.
• Common Data Set (CDS): Standardized method of compiling and reporting of information by academic institutions. Information presented in the CDS includes enrollments and degrees conferred, a profile of first-year students, statistics and policies on transfers, academic offerings and policies, student life, annual expenses, financial aid, faculty and class sizes.
• Citizenship: Designates whether a student is a U.S. citizen, non-citizen, or permanent resident alien (non-citizen).
• Class Level: Classification based on hours earned by a student.
  • Class Level Freshman: A student with credit hours earned between 0 and 30.
  • Class Level Sophomore: A student with credit hours between 30 and 60.
  • Class Level Junior: A student with credit hours between 60 and 90.
  • Class Level Senior: A student with credit hours greater than 90.
• Student Full-Time Equivalent (FTE): The full-time equivalent measure of a student's enrollment as determined by student level and credit hours enrolled.
• Retention: A measure of the rate at which students persist in their educational program at an institution, expressed as a percentage. For four-year institutions, this is the percentage of first-time bachelor (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduates from the previous fall who are again enrolled in the current fall. For all other institutions, this is the percentage of first-time degree- or certificate-seeking students from the previous fall who either re-enrolled or successfully completed their program by the current fall. Retention question: What percent of students returned the following fall?
• Persistence: The percentage of full-time, first-time bachelor's (or equivalent) degree-seeking undergraduates of a specified point in time (given cohort) who are graduating with a bachelor’s degree or are enrolled at a specified point in time. To persist into the third year means that the student is still enrolled during their second year or graduated after the second year they first enrolled. Retention rates are often given more attention than persistence rates. OIRA’s definition of persistence is based on the definition used by the University of North Carolina System Office.
• Returning/Continuing: Continuing students are those who enroll after a hiatus of no more than three semesters (excluding summer terms) since their most recent previous term of enrollment.
• Graduation Rate: The rate required for disclosure and/or reporting purposes under the Student Right-to-Know Act. This rate is calculated as the total number of completers within 150% of normal time divided by the revised adjusted cohort.
  • 4-Year Graduation Rate:  The proportion of full-time, first-time, degree-seeking undergraduates who completed a bachelor's degree at any US institution within 100 percent of normal time from the most recent cohort.  Reporting this figure supports the UNC System Strategic Plan.
  • 5-Year Graduation Rate:  The proportion of full-time, first-time, degree-seeking undergraduates who completed a bachelor's degree at any US institution within 125 percent of normal time, from the most recent cohort. Reporting this figure supports the 2019-2024 NCCU Strategic Plan.
  • 6-Year Graduation Rate: The proportion of full-time, first-time, degree-seeking undergraduates who completed a bachelor's degree at any US institution within 150 percent of normal time, from the most recent cohort. Reporting this figure supports federal reporting (IPEDS).
• First-Time Freshman: An individual who is enrolled at a post-secondary school after graduation from high school or the awarding of a GED.
• First-Generation College Student: A student whose parents (both) did not complete a bachelor’s degree or, in the case of students who live with and are supported by only one parent, a student whose only such parent did not complete a bachelor’s degree.
• Student Demographics
  • Full-Time Enrollment: Undergraduate students who are attempting 12 or more credit hours in a semester; professional or graduate students who are attempting 9 or more credit hours in a semester.
  • Part-Time Enrollment: Undergraduate student who is attempting fewer than 12 credit hours in a semester; professional or graduate student who is attempting fewer than 9 credit hours in a semester.
  • Gender: Male or female.
  • Race: Race and Hispanic ethnicity are now considered separate categories by the federal government and are reported as follows: All persons who identify themselves as Hispanic are reported only in the Hispanic ethnicity category. Individuals who are not Hispanic and report more than one racial background are reported in the "Two or More Races, non-Hispanic" category. All other individuals who do not claim Hispanic origin, nor multiple races, are classified in the single racial category chosen (Black, White, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, or American Indian).
  • Pell Recipient: Designates students who qualify to receive a Pell grant as part of their financial aid package — This is aid year specific.
  • Rural: An indicator used if the student's county of residence is designated as rural. The rural designation is based on the 2016 classifications of Tier 1 or Tier 2 by the NC Department of Commerce.
• List of NCCU Metrics
  • Prioritize
    • Low-income completions
    • Rural completions
    • Five-year graduation rates
    • Undergraduate degree efficiency
    • Achievement gaps in undergraduate degree efficiency
  • Improve
    • Low-income enrollments
    • Critical workforces
    • Research productivity
  • Sustain
    • Rural enrollment

NCCU Student Calculation of Full-Time Equivalent (FTE)

Student Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) calculations measure student course loads by translating the combination of full-time and part-time students (usually based on credit hours) into an equivalent number of full-time students. This document describes common methods used by NCCU for calculating student FTE.

This is the most common FTE measure used by the NCCU for internal reporting. Students are assigned an FTE value based on the number of credit hours in which the student is enrolled during a given semester, and the FTE values are then summed. Twelve or more credit hours are considered full time for undergraduates and nine or more credit hours are considered full time for graduate students (FTE = 1.00). The table below details the FTE value corresponding to the number of enrolled credit hours.

NCCU Calculation of FTE Student-to-Faculty Ratio

This is an FTE measure used in the IPEDS Fall Enrollment Survey if the institution does not choose to use its own methodology for calculating the FTE student-to-faculty ratio. IPEDS calculates the ratio of FTE students to FTE instructional staff as the number of full-time students and instructional staff plus one-third the number of part-time students/staff, excluding students in “stand-alone” graduate/professional programs (e.g., medicine, law, veterinary, or public health).

AIR Statement of Ethical Principles

The Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Statement of Ethical Principles provides overarching principles to guide the use of data in higher-education decision-making. 

Data and Analytics for Student Success

This data primer, provided by NASPA, AIR, and EDUCAUSE, looks into collaboration between institutional research, student affairs and information technology: 

IPEDS Training and Resources: Online Training Videos

The following links will take you to training videos produced by AIR that are related to tools designed to assist with gathering and using data from IPEDS:

• IPEDS Data Tools Overview
• Use the Data (IPEDS Data Center)
• Data Feedback Report (DFR)
• Trend Generator

SMA 101 Video Introduction to Student Data Mart

This is a 7.5-minute video introduction to the Student Data Mart concepts, benefits, uses, and capabilities. The intended audience is new staff in offices throughout UNC institutions who interact with the SDM and are unfamiliar with it. Direct access and viewing from a browser via a link are forthcoming.

Definition Sources

Definition sources include IPEDS, the UNC System (Office of Data and Analytics and Strategic Planning) and NCCU OREP.

Data Literacy Information | North Carolina Central University

D’Ignazio, C., & Bhargava, R. (2016). DataBasic: Design principles, tools and activities for data literacy learners. The Journal of Community Informatics, 12(3), 83–107. https://doi.org/10.15353/joci.v12i3.3278

A growing number of tools for data novices are not designed with the goal of learning in mind. This paper proposes a set of pedagogical design principles for tool development to support data literacy learners.  We document their use in the creation of three digital tools and activities that help learners build data literacy, showing design decisions driven by our pedagogy. Sketches students created during the activities reflect their adeptness with key data literacy skills. Based on early results, we suggest that tool designers and educators should orient their work from the outset around strong pedagogical principles.

Carlson, Jake R.; Fosmire, Michael; Miller, Chris; and Sapp Nelson, Megan R., "Determining Data Information Literacy Needs: A Study of Students and Research Faculty" (2011). Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research. Paper 23. 

https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/lib_fsdocs/23

Researchers increasingly need to integrate the disposition, management and curation of their data into their current workflows.  However, it is not yet clear to what extent faculty and students are sufficiently prepared to take on these responsibilities.  This paper articulates the need for a data information literacy program (DIL) to prepare students to engage in such an “e-research” environment. Assessments of faculty interviews and student performance in a geoinformatics course provide complementary sources of information, which are then filtered through the perspective of ACRL’s information literacy competency standards to produce a draft set of outcomes for a data information literacy program.