By Ola Popoola, Director of Reporting and Analytics, UCOP. The UC Information Center was launched in March 2015 by the Office of Institutional Research and Academic Planning (IRAP). The burgeoning demand for easy access to data – in part to support UC communication and advocacy efforts – was the impetus for creating this centralized infrastructure for “go-anywhere analytics.” The site now provides UC internal and external stakeholders a single reliable source for UC data and information.
The UC Information Center reflects UC’s commitment to transparency, and the site continues to cultivate a culture of analytics within UCOP and at the campuses. The project involved collaboration among various UCOP offices (IRAP, Information Technology Services, Communications, Student Affairs, Academic Personnel, and Office of Research and Graduate Studies).
Since the site’s debut, it has been greatly enhanced and updated with new data and visualizations that facilitate valid, reliable, and engaging answers to questions used extensively by UC system leadership, campuses, college counselors, prospective students and parents, and many others. The site gets over 60,000 hits a month.
To keep the website new and fresh, IRAP updates it three times a year – March, July and December. Updates always include improvements to existing information, adding current data, and brand new content.
Key updates to the site include:
- New tables that provide easy drill-down access for queries by individual source high school and community college and a particular transfer major at a particular UC campus, by far the most-popular information on the Information Center.
- A data table and dashboard based on a newly created contracts and grants data mart.
- Visual dashboards covering key statistics on UC’s degrees awarded, enrollment, summer enrollment, and graduate admissions. Dashboards that showcase UC’s external role in outreach and technology commercialization and a dashboard that goes beyond UC to look at nationwide analysis of “value added.”
- Interactive storyboards on UC’s contribution to California and alumni outcomes.