The document examines the utilization of decision support systems (DSS) in higher education institutions in Tennessee, highlighting their potential benefits in strategic planning and decision-making. It reviews various data sources and literature, noting that while some institutions are using DSS, the overall response rate to the survey conducted was low, indicating a need for further investigation. The findings suggest that a majority of the participating institutions use some form of DSS, but the study concludes that additional research is necessary to fully understand their impact in the sector.

1. Tennessee Higher Education and
the Use of Decision Support
Systems in Strategic Planning
and Decision Making
Jeff Hinds
PRST6998 Professional Project
December 11, 2013

2. Abstract
Business Intelligence products and processes have helped public
and private organization to identify opportunities and trends that
are both internal and external. For years the concepts of Business
Intelligence, data mining, “Big” data, have become an important
part of strategic planning and decision making within many
successful organizations. Higher education has been expressing the
importance of research, statistical analysis, data modeling, and
business decisions based on good information. In fact, higher
education institutions have created entire academic programs
around these topics. While this information is written and reported
within professional periodicals and events, the question stands
about how higher education is taking advantage of business
intelligence as part of their strategic planning and decision making
processes.

3.  Why this topic?
 Professional background
 The M.P.S. program and its influence
 What resources were used for this topic?
Introduction
 Academic
 Professional
 Personal
 What was my purpose for this study?
 Professional background
 Personal interest

4. Purpose of the study
Introduction
 Determine if decision support systems are being used by higher
education institutions in the state of Tennessee
 How Decisions Support Systems (DSS) can benefit higher
education institutions within the state of Tennessee

5. Higher education share a number of commonalities with business organizations.
Public and Private Sector
businesses
Product or service development
Student recruitment
Talent management
Recruitment of qualified instructors
Operating procedures
Why Decision Support Systems?
Program and degree offerings
Product sales and advertisements
Introduction
Higher Education
Process management
Payment from customers for
products or services
Payments for tuition, fees, and
services
Payments to vendors for products
and services (electric, water,
materials, equipment, etc.)
Payments to vendors for products and
services (electric, water, equipment,
communications, etc.)
Stake holders
Board of Trustees
Regulatory requirements (taxes,
auditor, etc.)
Regulatory requirements (taxes,
auditor, etc.)
Competition
Competition

6. Types of sources reviewed
 Peer reviewed journal articles
 Non-Peered reviewed articles
 Industry periodical publications
 Professional lectures and symposiums presentations
Review of
Literature
 Online webinars and seminar presentations
 Course offering from many higher education institutions
 Commercial and non-commercial web sites
 Doctoral Dissertations
 “Think Tank” white papers and articles

7.  Type of sources that were used
Review of
Literature






Journal articles from multiple industries and disciplines
Books
References from Newspapers
Commercial and Non-Commercial web sites
Doctoral Dissertations
“Think Tank” white papers and articles
 Some of the sources that ware not used






Interviews and discussions
Books from previous courses
Online webinars and seminar presentations
Professional lectures and symposiums presentations
Professional consultants specializing in leadership
Course offerings from many higher education institutions

8. Examples of source used:
 Callery, C. A. (2012). DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING IN
COMMUNITY COLLEGES: AN INTEGRATIVE MODEL FOR
INSTITUTIONAL EFFECTIVENESS. Dissertations.
Review of
Literature
 Mayer-Schonberger, V., & Cukier, K. (2013). Big Data: A Revolution
That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think. Boston
New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
 Power, D. J. (1995-2013). A Brief History of Decision Support
Systems. Retrieved Sept. 5, 2012, from Decision Support
Systems Resources:
http://dssresources.com/history/dsshistoryv28.html
 Rowley, J. (2000). Is higher education ready for knowledge
management? International Journal of Educational
Management, Vol. 14 Iss: 7, 325 - 333.

9. Examples of source not used:
 Briggs, L. L. (2006). Data-Driven Decision-Making >> Data Pioneers.
Retrieved from Campus Technology:
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2006/10/datadriven
decisionmaking--data-pioneers.aspx
Review of
Literature
 Data-Driven Decision Making: A Powerful Tool for School
Improvement. (2004). Minneapolis, Minnesota: Sagebrush
Corporation.
 Petersen, N. J., Davies, R. S., & Spitzer, B. (2006). Improving Data
Driven Decision Making through Assessment Literacy for
Respondents. Educational Research and Review Vol. 1 (8),
267-271.

10.  BI - Business Intelligence.
Definitions of
Variables
 DSS - Decision Support Systems.
 ETL - extract, translate, and load.
 IPEDS - Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.

11.  Decision Support Systems including





Definitions of
Variables
Data modeling
business intelligence/analytics
data interpretation services
Data Mining
Predictive analysis
 Example Technologies include




Databases
Data Warehouses and ETL
Data Cubes and Pivot Tables
Commercial and open source analytical tools

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


SAS
SPSS
DataHero
BigML
MADlib

12.  U.S. Department of Education
 Professional webinars and seminars
Other
Information
Sources
 Discussions with Data Warehousing and Business Intelligent
professions
 Discussions with Higher Education Information Technology
leadership

13. Planning a survey
 What questions to ask (purpose of this survey)
 Who should be included
Method of
Investigation
 How long should the survey be available
 How to conduct the survey or collect the information

14. The survey - What information to ask?
 Does the institutions use any form of Decision support system in
for strategic planning and operations?
 How important would you rate the information in the decision
making process?
Method of
Investigation
 Is the information used for strategic planning and measuring?
 What type of information is being used or defined?

15. The survey - Who should be included?
 Time constraints
 Is there any evidence that decisions support systems are being
used in higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee
 Possible participants
Method of
Investigation
 Selection of a intended population

16. Method of
Investigation
Usage of IPEDS data
U. S. Department of Education

17. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

18. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

19. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

20. Method of
Investigation
 Data from College Navigator

21. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

22. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

23. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

24. Method of
Investigation
IPEDS data from the U. S.
Department of Education

25. Possible participants
 All institutions?
 Public Institutions
 Private institutions
 4-Year or 2 Year institutions
Method of
Investigation

26. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there
are 190 Higher Education institutions in the State of
Tennessee
 48 public institutions (25.26% of total higher education institutions)
Method of
Investigation
 9 are 4 year institutions (18.75% of public institutions)
 39 are 2 year institutions (81.25% of public institutions)
(Community Colleges and Tennessee Technology Centers)
 142 private institutions (74.74% of total higher education institutions)
 90 private for-profit (63.38% of private institutions)
 52 private non-profit (36.62% of private institutions)

Note: Some institutions reported by NCES are duplicated as one institution may
offer 4-year, 2-year, and < 2-year programs and are counted in each
classification.

27. Selection of an intended population
 Time constraints
 Current scope
Method of
Investigation
Target organizations
 All public 4-year institutions in the state of Tennessee

28. This would limit the target population to 9 organizations:
 Austin Peay State University
 East Tennessee State University
Method of
Investigation
 Middle Tennessee State University
 Tennessee State University
 Tennessee Technological University
 The University of Tennessee
 The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
 The University of Tennessee-Martin
 University of Memphis

29. Communications with Institutions
 Email
 Follow up communications
Method of
Investigation

30. Survey delivery method
 Paper
 Electronic email
 Web site
Method of
Investigation

31. Method of
Investigation
Survey collection method

32. Method of
Investigation
Survey collection method

33. Method of
Investigation
Survey collection method

34. Method of
Investigation
Survey collection method

35. Survey Process
 Allow the survey to be open for a defined period of time
 Invite the target population to participate
 Scheduled follow up communications
 Close the survey and review the results
Method of
Investigation

36. Possible Results
 institutions that respond included complete information on the
survey
 institutions that respond with only some or partial information
Method of
Investigation
 the response data will consist of both complete and partial
information
 all institutions choose not to participate in the survey.

37. Results at the end of survey period
 No responses where submitted.
Method of
Investigation
The survey is completely voluntary.
This is a valid possible result to the survey.

38. After the survey was closed
 Communications from one of the institutions about participating.
 Zero participation in the survey was determined to be incomplete
for the study.
 Survey was reopened
Method of
Investigation
 Addition email communications to invite organizations to
participate in the survey.
 Phone communications to follow up the email communications

39. Second review of responses
 A total of 4 responses submitted
 Preferred number of submitted responses for the review
 Number of responses that used validation code
Method of
Investigation
 How responses were verified

40. Basic observations about the survey
 the time that the survey is available for institutions to participate
should be longer.
 information about the survey window should be included and
stated clearly in the invitation communication.
Findings
 the invitation communication to the target population may
receive a better response if the communication was
communicated with someone other than the senior decision
maker, president/chancellor, of the organization.
 while attempting to keep the initial communications with the
target population short, more information about the study and its
purpose should be included.
 because of the limited responses that have been submitted, the
use of the verification code was note needed

41.  Population size
(9 public 4-year institutions)
 Survey Return rate 44.4%
(4 returns / 9 members in the population)
 Margin of error 33.3%
(1 / SqRoot of members in the population )
Findings
 75% of those that responded to the survey are utilizing some form of
decision support system within their organization for strategic
planning and operations.
 50% of the respondents indicated they are neutral to the importance
of the information from the decision support system in the decision
making process.
 there is evidence that would support that some of the four-year public
higher education institutions in the state of Tennessee is using some
form of decision support system in their strategic planning and
operational processes.

42. How the information is used:
 “[c]ritical for strategic planning and institutional effectiveness”,
 “… important, because we use it to monitor implementation of our
plan and to assess the results…”,
Findings
 “… used mainly to show process toward strategic objectives.”

43.  There is a total of 78 four-year higher education institutions in the
state of Tennessee that report a combined enrollment greater
than 240,000 students.
 This study is not sufficient to draw any conclusions about the use
of decision support systems for strategic planning in higher
education within the state of Tennessee.
Conclusions
 This study does indicate that further studies would be justified to
determine how decision support systems are being used in the
strategic planning and decision making processes

44. Questions

45. Acknowledgements
Without the support of my wife, family, and friends, this
program and project would not have been possible. This has
been a difficult journey trying to balance family, work, and
school. Many times it seems there was no balance. Either
work or school would take priority leaving very little time for
anything else. Many times my friends and family would
provide support with listening and ideas when I was looking
for additional information or places to find information. My
wife has been a rock that has kept me grounded in my studies
throughout this program. She has helped me keep on track
when I had doubts about myself or what I was attempting to
accomplish when I enrolled in the program. My son and
daughter have been very patient and supportive with a quick
joke for me to go and do my homework. Sounds funny
coming from a high school kid directed to their “Padre”.

46. Thank you
To my review committee, instructors, and advisors, thank you for
your time, effort and advice at the beginning and throughout the
entire program. Your assistances has been invaluable.