Institutional Data:What It Is & Why It Matters

Institutional data refers to the collective efforts of colleges and universities to facilitate the sharing of information about their students. Institutional data typically includes things like class rosters, grades, course descriptions, and more. In this post, I'll explain what institutional data is and why it's important for students and educators alike.

What is Institutional data?

Institutional data is information about people that is owned by or under the control of an institution. Personal data includes information about individuals such as name and contact details (email address), academic performance records, and social media posts. Publicly available datasets include census bureau records on demographics; crime statistics reported by police departments; medical journals detailing research results; etc. Private datasets include proprietary business intelligence collected by corporations such as Facebook and Google through their own internal analytics systems like Graph Search or Google Trends which are not made publicly accessible but only available internally within those companies themselves.

Why should I care about Institutional data?

Institutional data is the data generated by, collected by or produced for your institution. It is a public good, which means it's important that you share it with other users. Institutions are making efforts to make their institutional data available online via open-access repositories such as OpenAIRE and Dataverse. Institutional data is a critical part of the research process, so you should make sure your institution's policies support this endeavour by publishing your own institutional research on open platforms like Zenodo or Figshare

How can I get access to Institutional data?

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is the primary means by which the public can obtain access to Government records. FOIA requesters may also be referred to as “requestors” or “applicants.”

To submit a request under FOIA, you will need:

• A written request (or letter) specifying what information you seek and how you want it delivered (electronically or on paper). Please include your name, address and phone number(s) so they can contact you if necessary.
• Payment of any required fees (if any). There is no charge under FOIA for making requests related solely to your own personal records held by an agency; however, other categories of requesters may be charged for search time/fees and duplication costs associated with processing their requests

It is helpful to know what institutional data is and how to access it.

For those who need access to institutional data, the first step is knowing what kind of information you are looking for. Different universities have different datasets available on their websites. Some require a paid membership or login, while others are free and open to the public. It is important to know what kind of information you need in order to properly assess which datasets will be useful for your research project.

full article: ACCESSING INSTITUTIONAL DATA