Planning and Research Analyst Office of Budget, Planning and Institutional Research, University of Connecticut Storrs, Connecticut, United States
Session Abstract: In recent years, there have been surging discussions in the IR profession regarding leveraging labor market information in higher education institutions’ strategic planning processes. Compared to traditional student outcome measurements, such as graduation rate, GPA, or time-to-degree, labor market outcomes are considered consistent and informative about how competitive students are in their professional careers nationwide and even worldwide. However, digging for information from labor market data is not an easy process. Working with labor market information often costs high subscription fees from data services, time commitment, and a high learning curve for IR analysts. This session focuses on the audience with entry-level to advanced-level data analysis skills. It will introduce several major labor market data resources open for public use, followed by data manipulation guidance about extracting essential labor market information from the raw data.
Keywords: institutional effectiveness, strategic planning, measurement of student outcomes, labor market data
