ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the UNC system's transformative data and analytics endeavors within a broader discussion of the evolving higher education decision support role. It touches on some of those contextual factors and discusses several ways in which the traditional IR function can, and arguably must, evolve to meet the demands of a changing higher education landscape, to become much more of a true decision support function. Human capital is the biggest challenge in building and maintaining analytical capacity and effective decision support. System offices have an opportunity to free up analytical capacity significantly by reducing regulatory barriers imposed by state and federal reporting requirements. Orienting the next generation of those products toward external audiences and a broader set of internal audiences can go a long way toward ameliorating misconceptions and mistrust that emerge in the current climate. How the system further develops a broad analytical ecosystem, human resources, and the governance and culture determine how that vision continues to unfold.
