Institutional Research Analyst III (2 Positions)

About the role

The Institutional Research Analyst III supports a wide variety of research projects that includes both simple and sophisticated data gathering, analysis, and reporting, which contributes to meeting institutional, federal, and accreditation requirements.

Responsibilities

• Report out institutional data to internal and external organizations related to institutional or system priorities, mandated or required information, and accreditation requirements.
• Invent and/or provide expertise related to appropriate theoretical frameworks, research designs, and methodological approaches to facilitate producing research studies that present timely, relevant, and consequential findings and insights.
• Consult and provide expertise related to available and appropriate data to meet requirements for requests as well as provide guidance to ensure findings and results are interpreted and described accurately.
• Design and conduct relevant data analyses by applying appropriate research methodologies and statistical techniques related to the requirements outlined for each project.
• Maintain and build relevant dashboards that are comprehensive and accessible for consumers to use.
• Apply various data visualization techniques to develop user-friendly reports, dashboards, and presentations to communicate key trends related to various topics that highlight strategic initiatives at the institutional and system levels including assigned projects.
• Develop systematic reporting capabilities, documentation, and web-based sites related to assigned projects to support operational continuity and departmental productivity.
• Develop a detailed understanding of and subject matter expertise related to institutional data, databases, and platforms (e.g., SAMI Gateway, Spartan Connect, Campus Data Warehouse) to perform analyses related to evaluation and research studies.
• Write queries, integrate data sources, and develop business logic to build data sets for use to conduct various analyses create reports and dashboards.
• Manage and clean large datasets for optimizing reporting and efficiency.
• Provide appropriate explanations of information resources based on operational definitions from relevant data dictionaries that are in use at SJSU and the CSU.
• Identify, investigate, and work to resolve data quality issues with relevant data being used across IRSA and other IRSA interfaces with to ensure accurate reporting of information.
• Provide technical tasks and provide technical support on data collection, aggregation, analytics, and assigned research and evaluation activities.
• Develop, maintain, and enhance relevant databases by serving as a strategic business partner to cultivate and integrate data from a range of sources.
• Cross-train colleagues and university stakeholders related to appropriate information, knowledge, skills, and competencies about managing, using, and reporting data.
• Support and engage in a wide range of complex evaluation and applied research studies.
• Examine and analyze practices, programs, and policies including various key initiatives related to student success to measure effectiveness and/or impact.
• Contribute to research projects involving analyses of student success and program outcomes using university data.
• Apply appropriate statistical and modeling techniques related to enrollment management, faculty workload, and student success including trend analysis, predictive and scenario modeling.
• Facilitate formative and summative evaluation processes for IRSA using institutional and programmatic data through the application of mixed methodologies to analyze effectiveness and impact for planning and decision-making purposes.
• Prepare informative reports and presentations of professional quality to facilitate the interpretation and utilization of data by a audience of institutional stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Equivalent to graduation from a four-year college or university.
• Three years of progressively responsible technical research or statistical experience including or supplemented by one year in the interpretation and graphic presentation of data.
• Master’s degree in education, social sciences, economics, computer science, data analytics, mathematics, statistics, public or business administration, computer or data science, or other related fields.
• Three or more years of experience in a similar function.
• Experience in higher education research, coding/programming, project management, enrollment management and/or scheduling concepts and procedures.
• Experience running statistical models and predictions (such as linear and binary regressions) on higher education data sets.
• Experience working directly in Institutional Research/Institutional Effectiveness, Assessment, and/or Data Analytics/Business Intelligence offices.

Skills

• Ability to communicate with constituents in a professional and respectful manner.
• Understand and able to apply appropriate survey, evaluation, and research designs and methodologies to measure institutional, programmatic, and key initiatives’ effectiveness and/or impact.
• Knowledge and ability to use data information systems (e.g., PeopleSoft & Campus Data Warehouse) to build dashboards (e.g., Tableau, Power BI).
• Project management skills, which include but are not limited to clear and concise communication; organization, time, and task management abilities; planning and scheduling; technical and research knowledge, and; adept in relationship and team building.
• Ability to manage and oversee multiple programs’ operational needs, coordinate logistics to ensure timely delivery of work products, and provide recommendations for areas of improvement.
• Ability to apply analytic mindset and use appropriate techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of policies, programs, and practices.
• Proficient writing and presentation skills including the ability to communicate technical details to nontechnical audiences.
• Identify important insights from various data and program sources and suggest implications for university policy and practices.
• Support academic leaders on their enrollment, program, assessment, and scheduling management practices.
• Write original and edit existing queries using SQL.
• Apply general statistical techniques, such as tests of difference and association (e.g., t-tests, ANOVA, correlation, regression) and ability to learn and apply statistical models in software packages such as IBM SPSS, SAS, Stata, and/or R using command syntax.
• Data management skills and the ability to generate, query, merge, transform, and restructure data sets and account for missing, duplicated, and unmatched data using SQL and similar techniques.
• Learn and apply best practices related to statistical models in enrollment planning (e.g., regression, moving average) and ability to test and refine numerical projection techniques in tools such as Excel, SPSS, and R.
• Explain statistical and quantitative issues to a variety of audiences.
• Produce tables and graphical analyses in software systems such as Tableau and Microsoft Excel.
• Knowledge of data presentation conventions and techniques.

Pay

Compensation Classification: Research Technician III
Anticipated Hiring Range: $6,501/month - $6,763/month (Step 9 – Step 11)
CSU Salary Range: $5,548/month - $8,083/month (Step 1 – Step 20)