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Data Standards Group

The Data Standards Group is charged with designing, maintaining, coordinating, and supervising the manner in which we enter and code institutional data. Our goal is to standardize processes across computer systems and across departments so that the institution can accurately report out information and analyze data. The group includes representatives from key administrative and technical offices involved in data collection at Dickinson. These include Admissions, Development, Financial Aid, Financial Operations, Global Education, Human Resources, Institutional Research, Institutional Systems, Public Safety, Registrar's Office, and Residence Life. The group is chaired by the Director of Institutional Research because that office is ultimately responsible for external reporting and analyzing institutional data. The group reports to and advises the Director of Institutional Systems.

During the1College Project, the Data Standards Group will develop the initial standards by which data will be converted from current systems into Banner and how data will be entered and coded when the system goes live. After the 1College Project is completed, the group will continue to meet regularly to review and improve how data are being entered and coded in all administrative information systems (Banner, Recruitment Plus, etc.) and to deal with any new issues or conflicts as they arise (for example, new government reporting regulations on race and ethnicity, etc.).

The Data Standards Group makes its decisions using the following guiding principles in line with Dickinson's goal to be a unified and integrated college:

• While each department has immediate responsibility for one aspect of Dickinson, we want to keep a unified approach to how we enter and code our data so that the whole college can benefit from the information one office may provide. We work for Dickinson first and our departments, second.

• Whenever possible we will not "reinvent the wheel" by creating data standards in a vacuum; but rather, we will use externally prevalent data standards in order to facilitate efficiency and reporting. As these external standards change, we will adjust our standards accordingly. (For example, we will use US Postal Code standards in all US address fields to improve mailing efficiency and to enable us to use Postal Code software.) We will also stay alert to external trends or changes in reporting and data submission that may impact how we enter and code our data and revise our standards accordingly.

• Whenever possible, we will reduce the impersonal "bureaucratization" that can occur with standardized data entry by allowing for personalization of individualized data (such as name, title, etc.). Dickinson prides itself on personal attention and on being a community; as such we should allow our members to choose how we address them when we have that option.

• We want to ensure data integrity from one person to the next, from one department to the next, from one administrative system to the next, and from one year to the next. In order to do this, we will design standards that make sense for data entry staff as well as for data reporting and analysis. We will provide documentation for departments to use to train and supervise data entry staff and for technical staff to use as a reference guide. We will work to mediate any conflicts that arise between or among departments. We will try to maintain standards from one cycle or year to the next whenever possible and reasonable in order to allow for longitudinal analyses.