Technology & Data Resources

Institutional Data Policies

For anyone working with institutional data, be it business or student data, it is expected that the user is familiar with the university’s policies and working within the outlined parameters. Every user of institutional data should review the following links annually, at minimum:

• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
• Sensitive Data
• MSU Institutional Data
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA)

The college offers a training on using, storing, and transporting sensitive data. The training is held annually and individuals are required to end a training once every three years.

Data Warehouses

The University has several locations in which it publishes data related to business and student operations and information. Here are just a few to get you started.

Data Digest
Data Digest is designed to provide comprehensive quantitative information about Michigan State University (MSU). University attributes can be measured in a variety of ways depending on differing definitions and timing. This data digest attempts to provide a consistent set of information over the duration of the display.

Planning Profile Summary
Aggregated data on faculty, staff, students, student credit hours, class size, research, budget, expenditure, and space metrics. Formatted to base year 1994 and includes the most recent four years of data in HTML version. Users can also select specific years, units, and variables using the University Metric Tools Excel workbook.

Office of Admissions
A comprehensive data request form which allows the user to request applicant cohort information directly from the Office of Admissions.  Requests must be in compliance with FERPA and hold a valid ‘need to know’ business purpose. The request form has several parameters built into drop downs for ease of use:

• Semester
• Degree level
• Admission status
• Ethnicity
• Residency

Student Information Generator (Registrar)
Located under Faculty and Staff forms, the Student Information Generator system allows end users to run standardize reports on enrollment, grades, and student information. There is also an option to build your own query that hinges on the enrollment for a particular semester. 

Business Intelligence and Analytics (inside of EBS)
BI provides several stock reports and query studio capabilities for topics ranging from budget, to student persistence, to course instructor listings.

For training assistance, visit MSU’s Analytics and Data Solutions site

College of Education data

The college has 20 years of tabulated data on our students and academic programs.  The information is used for to comply with external accreditation agencies, ranking systems such as the US News and World Report, and governmental agencies.

A few of our report topics are listed below:

• Admission cohort profiles
• GRE data for doctoral programs
• Enrollment trends
• Graduation rates

Access to data

Michigan State University has developed a layered approach to accessing student information data. MSU operates on a central system which has roughly 150 satellite systems operating around it. The satellite programs offer its community the opportunity to view, collect, and update key pieces of information about students, courses, grades, etc. Access for students and faculty occurs automatically while access for staff often requires a request for access.

Operational data associated with the institution is available to users of the Enterprise Business System through the reports available in Business Intelligence. Additional access many need to be granted for some users.

Staff members discuss their need for additional access with their supervisors. If approved, the supervisor will then work with the college’s security officer to submit the proper paperwork. Deborah Collver serves is our security officer. She reviews requests, determines if the need is appropriate, and coordinates the allowance of access.