Data Matters 2025

Heidi Fraser-Krauss welcomes you to Data Matters 2025!

HESA’s merger with Jisc in October 2022 triggered a new data strategy for the merged organisation, with the ambitious aim to become the data body for HE and FE. We will outline the three sections of the strategy: statutory data functions; data products and services; and internal data foundations. We will give examples of key early successes including:

• new predictive modelling work of international students,
• a data maturity framework for members to drive their own data journeys,
• an internal Jisc data roadmap which describes our own similar journey.

Looking ahead, we will also discuss national data collections appropriate to new tertiary model favoured by nations’ governments; the increasing importance of identity in the context of lifelong learning and wider; and a potential new national data infrastructure to provide more timely data on tap.

In his role as the Higher Education Student Support Champion, Professor Edward Peck has engaged with universities and colleges, sector agencies, students, and parents to discuss and share challenges, opportunities and good practice on approaches to student support. In this keynote, Edward will discuss data-informed mechanisms to support students to thrive in their studies and ensure they can access appropriate support. This includes: 

• Student analytics: using data to predict as well as report on student engagement and wellbeing for earlier intervention;
• Student ‘life cycle’: changing needs of school and college learners and improving HE transition activities; and
• Student support re-design: delivering a comprehensive, coherent and evidence-based system of support.

 11:35 - 12:00 (25 mins) 

Making data-informed decisions is vital if the sector is to maximise its value to and achieve the best outcomes for students. Join Scotty for an overview of one of Jisc's advanced business intelligence dashboards - discover progression: undergraduate to postgraduate - to see how HESA data can be leveraged using a unique student linking methodology in a data visualisation dashboard co-created with strategic planners.

Hear how the Office for Students (OfS) mental health analytics project provided a step-change in student support and how the lessons learned can be applied across the Higher Education sector. 

Explore the value of estates data to support strategic planning and real-time building performance management for a more sustainable future. You will find out how Jisc’s smart buildings and IoT analytics innovation aims to support organisational challenges including: 

• Sustainability goals
• Student wellbeing
• Energy and resource efficiencies
• Space utilisation and optimisation 
• Asset management

The session will cover; 

• The role of data in modern education - importance of data in decision-making
• Data collection methods - tools and technologies used for data collection (student performance, attendance, feedback, etc)
• Data analysis and insights - methods of data analysis and key insights derived from the data
• Implementing changes based on data - specific changes made in college operations and examples of successful data-driven initiatives
• Challenges and solutions - strategies for managing common challenges faced in data implementation
• Future directions - upcoming data-driven projects and long-term vision for data usage in the college

 12:45 - 13:45 (1 hour)    

The Data Maturity Framework is built to guide you and colleagues on your data journey, from setting the foundations to embedding a data strategy in your organisation. 

In this session we will show you how to navigate the framework, exploring the overarching themes that condense years of best practice across the sector and demonstrate how it can be applied to your organisation.

There is an increasing amount of data available in the world but not all of it is good data and not all of the good data is easy to access.  Join Michelle and Dan as they outline what leaders should be considering when it comes to leading with data and an opportunity to build your data leadership skills.

Learn more about Jisc learning analytics. From it's origins as a HE sector co-design project, through the current redevelopment and into an exciting future. Find out how this service remains central to Jisc and how it can benefit your institution. 

University of Leeds has successfully leveraged data for its digital transformation, improving efficiency and support for its staff and students.  

Monica Jones, Chief Data Officer, University of Leeds, presents her data strategy and transformation programme, highlighting the challenges, successes and learning from failure. Setting out their journey to data maturity, Monica will talk about engagement of key stakeholders in the process and provide practical advice for universities to support their digital transformation efforts using data.

International students play a vital role in the UK's higher education system, both financially and in terms of soft power. 

This analysis is undertaken with Jisc, and it aims to enhance our understanding of the global student flows and their impact on UK HE. It draws on the following emerging themes:

• Two decades of student mobility and mid-term forecasts reflecting a shift away from countries with high stability towards more uncertain markets
• International students' entry routes into and subsequent trajectory through UK HE, including progression to further study, illustrating the unique power of HESA data
• Tuition fee pricing trends, yielding a better understanding of fee discounts based on available data

Janet will conclude by updating on our quantitative analysis of our sector’s contribution to the world's executive power, e.g. recipients of prestigious scholarships, Nobel prizes, government officials, ambassadors, heads of state, etc.

This is a session looking at how Jisc uses Graduate Outcomes data alongside other sources to get a broader view of the UK's skilled labour market and examine how students and institutions can be supported in their aims of helping the sector help the UK's economic and social fabric.

In this session we will hear about how data is being used across a variety of roles in HE and FE, the benefits it brings and the challenges of using it well. The speakers cover diverse roles such as research management, student engagement and employability & enterprise.

15:20 - 15:50 (20 mins)    

Showcasing the value of student data and exploring key headlines from the 22/23 data.

Explore the UK's authoritative and internationally respected data on Knowledge Exchange - the Higher Education - Business and Community Interactions survey (HE-BCI). We will look at how the HE-BCI data is used to support policy and funding, focusing on:

• Why you should care about data quality in your own HE-BCI data
• How HE-BCI data contributes to policymaking for the HE sector
• New data on spin-out companies coming in 2025 and future HE-BCI improvements.

We know data is key to making the most of AI, but what does that actually mean in practice? What processes and strategies do we need in place to maximise AI's potential?

The rise of generative AI is transforming our understanding of data. Traditionally, we've perhaps focused on numeric data and that’s still vitally important, but in the world of generative AI, our perspective must broaden. Almost anything that can be digitised—images, documents, sound, video—becomes valuable data. How must our processes and governance evolve to accommodate this shift? And, crucially, what can universities and colleges achieve if we embrace these changes and get it right?

Heidi Fraser-Krauss shares closing thoughts of Data Matters 2025.

17:00 - 18:00 (1 hour)