Director of Institutional Research & Decision Support

This position conducts research, analyzes and reports measured progress in optimizing university performance. Develops, implements, and manages information systems to provide a basis for institutional planning, research and assessment. This position works collaboratively with all administrators of departments, offices, and programs of the university to ensure data-driven decision-making and continuous quality improvement by facilitating and coordinating systematic, integrated, research based institutional effectiveness planning and reporting. Maintains a data warehouse of institutional data used in surveys, reports, fact book, environmental scan, and dashboards. Uses existing network/warehouse databases and develops other information resources as needed to support the planning function and satisfies institutional reporting requirements.

Essential Functions:

• Develop methods for gathering, tracking, and maintaining information; facilitate institutional research activities in the management, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of various data and information used internally in institutional planning and assessment, including those associated with student success, enrollment forecasting, and institutional effectiveness at all levels.  Design and conduct research projects of importance and interest to the campus community and disseminates through various venues, including but not limited to, an IE website.  Fulfill data and informational needs to support strategic and institutional planning efforts and decision making at multiple levels of the institution’s organizational structure.
• Conduct analytical studies in response to internal and external data requests, particularly in the areas of administrative and professional employee compensation and organization; faculty salary and compensation; faculty characteristics; staffing trends; and salary increases.
• Prepare responses to various State agency information requests.  Participate in institutional data exchange activities.  Design and conduct peer comparison studies and other special studies as required.  Prepare statistical reports and analyze changes/trends in University resources.  Prepare analyses to meet internal management information needs.  Participate in committees as necessary.
• Work as a team member to refine the unit’s research agenda based on scanning of national and state trends in key subject areas.
• Responsible for the data warehouse design and configuration of the Institutional Research Information System (IRIS). Design and build relational databases for data storage or processing.  Develop strategies for warehouse implementation, data acquisition, and archive recovery.  Clean and maintain the database by removing and deleting old data.  May evaluate new data sources for adherence to the university’s quality standards and ease of integration.
• Install, deploy and upgrade data warehouse systems applications; maintain documentation, and perform routine systems administration maintenance activities.  Develop data models and data maps for data warehouse system.  Develop processes and applications for migration/transformation of data from university-wide systems to the data warehouse system.  Develop and maintain data marts, data cubes, queries, and reports.
• Manage dedicated server for research activities and imports data from PowerCampus, PowerFaids and works with other administrative systems.
• Prepare federal and state reporting, internal requests and projects, and surveys from guidebooks, professional organizations, and research agencies.  
• Gather research data for Academic and Administrative departments.
• Assist in publishing data, reports, and surveys in paper, digital, and web-based formats.
• Participate and/or chair committees and task forces as requested.
• Represent the university in organizations devoted to institutional research and assessment.
• Perform other duties necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness. 
• Integrate the core values of respect, compassion, integrity, justice, and service in all aspects of interaction.

Qualifications:

• A master’s degree in statistics, higher education or related field
• Substantial experience in higher education required. Monitoring and analyzing the performance of data warehouse systems. Providing technical assistance to end users regarding data warehouse issues and problems. Creating and documenting database tables, views, data elements, and reports. Performing data warehouse maintenance activities such as data warehouse backups, creating accounts and enforcing data warehouse security.
• Maintaining confidentiality of work related information and materials.
• Strong analytical, problem solving and data management skills
• Background in statistical analyses.
• Excellent written and oral communication.
• Detail oriented with the ability to multitask.
• Proficiency with database querying software such as Microsoft Access.
• Knowledge of statistical software such as SPSS.
• Experience with the web page design and maintenance desireable.

**MUST BE US WORK AUTHORIZED**