ABSTRACT
Honors data experts across the United States pen Chapter 7. The contributors tender practical instruction on where to utilize data, internal and external sources for data collection, and methods for creating data in an honors college. The authors scrutinize data forms and types as well as workflow automation, interactive dashboards, and feedback loops for decision support. They stress the importance of adhering to policies regarding data collection, from security issues to privacy. Assessment and its techniques receive significant treatment here, from the function and purpose of assessment to the tools and methodologies for executing that assessment. Also discussed is the role of telling stories to enhance the human element of the activities and impacts of an honors education, one that can be particularly compelling to multiple audiences. The final section of the chapter returns to a theme featured in this introduction: data in the service of explaining honors to different audiences, the development of compelling narratives, and registering ways in which honors scholars outperform the rest of the campus. Chapter 7 is not a survey of honors colleges across the nation. Rather, it is a hands-on practicum designed to help honors administrators refine—or generate—data, assessments, stories, and narratives.
