The University of Maryland, Baltimore County has developed a national reputation for collecting and analyzing student data to help improve the educational effectiveness of our programs and services and to support individual students with available academic resources.
More information about the student data UMBC collects is available here.
[content from https://analytics.umbc.edu/data-governance/]
Data Management Committee
UMBC’s Data Management Committee (DMC) focuses on the curation and use of data as an institutional asset. The DMC is co-chaired by the Vice President of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) and the Assoc. Vice Provost for Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRADS). Along with stakeholders and subject-matter experts from across campus, the DMC meets monthly to discuss data governance of UMBC’s Report Exchange (REX) data warehouse. Recurring topics of interest include data quality, data literacy, institutional and learning analytics, privacy, security, and training and support. More Information: DMC “Running Agenda” (UMBC login req’d).
Recent Reports
- DMC FY25 Annual Report
- DMC FY 24 Annual Report
- DMC FY23 Annual Report
Resources
- Fritz, John. “Why and How to Build a Learning Analytics Community of Practice.” The EvoLLLution, February 12, 2025. https://evolllution.com/why-and-how-to-build-a-learning-analytics-community-of-practice.
- Horito, Jennifer. “4 Tips for Telling Better Stories with Your Data.” Vantage Technology Consulting Group, July 6, 2022. https://www.vantagetcg.com/blog-4-tips-for-telling-better-stories-with-your-data/.
- Understanding and Developing a Data-Informed Culture (May 16, 2022). https://library.educause.edu/resources/2022/5/understanding-and-developing-a-data-informed-culture.
- Joseph, Kevin, and Damian Doyle. “Data Governance: Becoming a Data-Informed Institution.” EDUCAUSE Review, December 8, 2020. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2020/12/data-governance-becoming-a-data-informed-institution.
-
Hrabowski III, Freeman A., Jack Suess, and John Fritz. “Assessment and Analytics in Institutional Transformation.” EDUCAUSE Review, October 2011. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2011/9/assessment-and-analytics-in-institutional-transformation.
Acceptable Use
It is UMBC’s philosophy to provide access to institutional data as broadly as possible. Access to UMBC data brings with it an obligation for responsible usage, which includes adherence to University, state and federal policies that affect how institutional data can be used. Users accessing data must observe requirements for confidentiality and privacy, must comply with protection and control procedures, and must accurately present the data in any use.
Any requests for data by external parties, or for external usage, should be directed to the appropriate Data Manager for that data. Your access to data is authorized for internal usage and should not be used for external requests, unless approved by the Data Manager.
Examples of Acceptable Use
-
- Generate a list of students in my major, so I can contact them for advising
- Generate a list of new admits in my department, so I can contact them to encourage enrollment
- Generate a list of recent graduates for a departmental alumni listserv
Examples of Unacceptable Use
-
- Generate a list of admitted students or graduation candidates to inquire, on behalf of my neighbor, the status of their son’s application for admission or graduation.
- Supply an external company a list of students in my department with GPAs less than 2.0, to market tutoring services
Data Dictionary
The Data Dictionary (coming soon> is an off-campus service powered by the HelioCampus Console that allows REX to collect descriptions and definitions for reports, tables and fields used within REX. The data dictionary uses UMBC credentials, so you may be requested to login if you have not already.