Join a Working Group to Define Student-Related Institutional Definitions

Earlier this year, the Data Governance team within the Office of Technology and Digital Innovation (OTDI) launched a new initiative to standardize institutional definitions, partnering with colleagues across the university and medical center.

While the group puts final touches on the first batch of terms, they are now seeking faculty and staff who wish to be a part of the second working group, which will continue to focus on terms under the “student” umbrella, including defining full-time student, part-time student and student rank.

Interested participants can fill out this Qualtrics survey to get involved and should indicate if they want to be part developing definitions, reviewing the definitions or just want to be notified when the work is complete. The group will be meeting on December 15, so do not delay!

Why is this work important?

While faculty and staff at the university use terms like “student” and “employee” every day, there are no standard definitions for these terms across the university and medical center. For everyday use, it might not seem to matter that these common terms do not have a standardized institutional definition, but once we start trying to dive into data, the inconsistencies in how we define these terms can lead to confusion and inaccurate reporting and analysis.

How does this work?

Working in batches of related terms, the Data Governance team facilitates the development of working groups, composed of faculty and staff from across the university and medical center, to create standardized institutional definitions. One batch of terms is worked on at a time.

Faculty and staff interested in being involved in future definition creation, can fill out this Qualtrics survey to be notified of upcoming opportunities.

More information and future terms up for defining can be found on the project’s website.