Core Data Service Announcements

Sign up to be e-mailed about important Core Data Service announcements.

May 11, 2009 – Notice of Errata

It has been discovered that the data in Table 5-2 in the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2007 Summary Report was incorrect. This error appeared in the original PDF file of the entire report and in the original PDF file for chapter five. On May 11, 2009, the files were corrected and reposted.

If you downloaded or printed these files prior to May 11, 2009, you should replace them with the corrected files.

The table that follows contains the corrected data points.

Note that the printed copies of the report also contain the errors.

October 7, 2005 – Notice of Errata

On October 5, 2005, the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service Fiscal Year 2004 Summary Report was posted to the EDUCAUSE Web site. After the posting, it was discovered that data in two cells of Table 1-9 were incorrect due to typographical errors. These errors appeared in the PDF file of the entire report and in the PDF file for chapter one. On the morning of October 6, the files were corrected and reposted.

If you downloaded or printed these files during the 24-hour period during which they contained errors, you should replace them with the corrected files.

Table 1-9 presented summary statistics of total central FTE IT staff. The correct minimum for BA LA schools is 3.5 (not 35) and the correct median number for AA schools is 15 (not 0.5). The table that follows contains the corrected data points.

Table 1-9: Summary Statistics of Total Central FTE IT Staff

Note that the printed copies of the report also contain the errors. A corrected page 9 has been inserted into the print copies and the mailing of the printed report (scheduled for late October) will also include a corrected page 9 with instructions to insert it into the print copy.

May 2, 2005 – Core Data Service and COSTS Surveys Will Merge

Leaders of the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) and the COSTS Project have announced that, later this year, they will integrate their respective efforts to gather and analyze data about the costs and environmental factors of information technology in higher education.

Cost of Supporting Technology Services (COSTS) was started in 1997 by Karen Leach and David Smallen of Hamilton College as an effort to measure the unit costs of providing IT services based on institutional characteristics. They eventually partnered with the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges (CLAC) in refining the instrument and making its completion a condition of annual CLAC membership. According to Smallen, “We feel we have established the importance of IT benchmarks and have successfully opened a dialogue between IT leaders and institutional leaders. We now want this effort to move to the next level, and EDUCAUSE is the organization that has the resources, leadership, and membership size to do just that.”

The EDUCAUSE Core Data Service was launched in 2002 to build a comprehensive quantitative picture of the state of information technology at all types and sizes of colleges and universities. The centerpiece of the CDS is a powerful interactive database that is accessible to institutions that complete the survey (621 in 2002, 822 in 2003, and 882 in 2004). With detailed data on IT organization, staffing, and planning; IT financing and management; faculty and student computing; networking and security; and information systems, the CDS database allows participants to look at individual institutions’ data; to aggregate data with filters for Carnegie class, size, and governance; to establish customized peer groups for comparison; and to launch real-time trend analyses.

One major difference between the two surveys is that COSTS looks at projected IT budgets for the coming fiscal year, while CDS captures data about actual funding and expenditures for the past, completed fiscal year. The integrated CDS survey will continue to use the past-fiscal-year model, but will incorporate several key data fields from the COSTS survey to calculate additional benchmark ratios.

While access to the CDS database is restricted to institutions that complete the survey, each year’s extensive aggregate results are assembled into a publicly accessible Core Data Service Summary Report.

In welcoming the pending merger, EDUCAUSE President Brian Hawkins said, “The addition of the CLAC community and other participants in the COSTS Project will only enhance the gratifying increase in the number of institutions that find the Core Data Service to be an indispensable resource for dispelling myths and bringing a culture of evidence to IT planning.”

March 2, 2004 – Caution Advised in Using IPEDS Data for Ratios

When the EDUCAUSE Core Data Service (CDS) was initiated, the architecture of the effort included the merging of data captured through the core data survey with institutional data we already had on file via campus submissions of data to the federal government through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). The reason for this approach was to avoid unduly burdening survey respondents with having to report data already available from what we considered a reliable source. IPEDS data reporting requires the extensive effort of a variety of offices on any campus, and this is the "official" information the college or university stands behind, used by the federal government. However, despite the best of intentions, these data proved to be inconsistent and inappropriate for the use of much of what we had intended to accomplish.

In the summer of 2003, we conducted extensive analyses of our survey data and selected IPEDS data (faculty FTE, student FTE, and total institutional expenditures), both to ensure data integrity and to prepare the summary report that EDUCAUSE issued in October of 2003 summarizing data and identifying key findings. Through those analyses, we determined that some of the campus IPEDS total expenditures data were inconsistent, and thus ratios using that data element, as well as approximations of the former educational and general (E&G) budget of an institution, could not be used due to their unreliability.

Various faculty and student ratios based on IPEDS data were included in the summary report, but subsequent analyses in the fall of 2003 (after the printing of the report) showed some serious problems with the IPEDS faculty data. Thus we hereby advise that the two ratios presented in the 2002 summary report that used IPEDS faculty data be considered questionable. These ratios will not be included in future versions of the summary report or in the ratios provided in the online database component of this year's Core Data Service.

In researching the way financial and faculty data are reported to IPEDS, we collaborated with several commercial vendors, the Department of Education, NCHEMS, and other groups that are actively using comparable data. We learned that these problems are endemic with IPEDS and that there are no easy work-arounds. Below are explanations of the major issues that arise with the use of IPEDS data to determine ratios.

• Issues with IPEDS Data on Total Institutional Expenditures
  The financial data that EDUCAUSE had the ability to connect in these analyses included the total expenditures and total revenues for the campus, as well as the various individual contributors to each of these totals. For many years, examining the campus central IT expenditures as a function of the educational and general (E & G) budget proved to be a very valuable ratio in comparing campus commitments to IT. However, with changes in the ways that campuses had to report financial data that began in the mid to late 1990s and are continuing, this ratio is no longer feasible since E & G is no longer reported. The changes in accounting standards began first for private institutions, and now are starting to be required of public institutions. Dramatically different reporting of expenditures is found, depending on whether a campus is using FASB or GASB reporting. The Core Data Service respondents were split nearly 50 - 50 on this dimension, with most if not all private institutions using FASB standards and the vast majority of public institutions using GASB standards.
  When EDUCAUSE conducted analyses, the range was too great and there appeared to be too many anomalies because of the differences in the way data were being reported. When looking at all schools, the different accounting principles that led to these expenditures make it impossible to compare apples to apples. If one were examining such ratios with totally homogeneous groups for peer comparison (that is, all FASB or all GASB reporting schools), the results might make more sense.
• Issues with IPEDS Data on Faculty FTE Numbers
  The 2002 CDS summary report presented two faculty ratios: central IT funding per faculty member and number of institutionally owned or leased computers per faculty member. While these numbers seemed to be reasonable, in doing more detailed analysis we noted an emerging pattern. These ratios were incredibly stable for smaller and non-research institutions, such as BA, AA, and many if not all MA institutions. However, the variability of the ratios for doctoral institutions was much greater. When detailed analyses were conducted, it became apparent that the data anomalies were related to the reporting of clinical faculty by institutions that had hospitals. While the IPEDS instructions explicitly state that adjunct and clinical faculty should not be included in these numbers, different institutions have different definitions for these faculty, and therefore there were enormous ranges for these schools that made direct comparability impossible.
  There may be other problems with faculty numbers as this is a complex area, but the problems with the doctoral schools and medical school complexities have led EDUCAUSE to the decision not to use faculty ratios in future analyses. The faculty ratios for the most part paralleled the student ratio patterns, and the student data appear to be accurate and stable.
• Using IPEDS Data in Your Analyses
  While EDUCAUSE does not intend to promulgate what we believe are questionable or unreliable data, we will continue to provide IPEDS data as part of the CDS database service, with an appropriate caveat emptor notice, to allow those campuses that decide the anomalies are not relevant to their situations to calculate their own ratios for benchmarking purposes.
  If a campus wishes to look for ratios using IPEDS data, the three IPEDS data elements are available through the Core Data Service Web site. After entering your log-in information, you will be presented a menu of choices. Click on the choice to access the database service; at the top of that page, click to see the breakdown of respondents to the survey, then click to see a detailed list, which then displays each school by Carnegie class, control (public versus private), and the three IPEDS data elements (student FTE, faculty FTE, and total institutional budget).

©Copyright EDUCAUSE. Data contributed to the Core Data Service by a participating institution remain the property of that institution. Otherwise, the contents of the Core Data Service database, survey, and Web site are the copyrighted property of EDUCAUSE and may not be reproduced, republished, distributed, sold, transferred, downloaded, or modified without the express written permission of EDUCAUSE. EDUCAUSE claims copyright to data captured through the Core Data Service to protect data confidentiality on behalf of contributors, not for commercial gain.