USING AACSB DATA A CASE GUIDE POWERED BY DATADIRECT aacsb.edu/datadirect
Within this guide, you will find five cases detailing use scenarios for DataDirect the world s most comprehensive source of business school data. Each case provides a high-level look at some of the functions available to members and those who participate in AACSB s annual surveys. Through DataDirect, you have access to benchmarking tools, custom comparison groups, and overview reports on the following topics: Students Institutions Personnel Programs
I use DataDirect to provide relevant benchmarking information for informed decision-making. My college generates comparison metrics from DataDirect throughout the academic year to evaluate and develop business cases for moving the college forward to achieve its strategic goals. Ginger Breon Assistant Dean for Administration Chief Information Officer Smeal College of Business The Pennsylvania State University
NEGOTIATING Data User: Department Chair At a Glance: Hiring a new assistant professor of finance where should we start the salary negotiations?
Problem: As a hub of financial activity, businesses in a Texas city are calling for students with more financial acumen. In response, a mid-sized, private business school in the area established several new courses for non-business majors in basic financial principles. To accommodate this increased course load, the school s Finance Department chair needs to hire a new assistant professor of finance. The chair needs to know what the current salaries are for professors of this level in his region to make a competitive offer. Solution: The chair creates a custom comparison group of business schools in the southwestern U.S. and uses it for a personalized report, finding salary information for new assistant professors of finance on the tenure track. The report provides mean, quartile, median, and total categories, for highly usable data. With these salary figures, the dean is able to confidently approach candidates with a starting number in mind for salary negotiations. NEGOTIATING Process: 1. Create a comparison group of schools in the southwestern U.S. 2. Using the quick reports tool, select salaries: faculty under salary survey benchmarking. 3. Select the most recent year and desired variables. Variable options include tenure track, pay period, discipline, faculty level, and more. 4. Choose go to report for a custom report. Assistant Professor Salary Distributions All $115,700 first quartile $110,000 first quartile $153,900 average New Hires $153,300 average $195,000 third quartile $200,000 third quartile
ACCREDITATION Data User: Accreditation Coordinator At a Glance: How can we find peer, aspirant, and competitive schools among a global market?
Problem: As part of her school s initial application for achieving AACSB Accreditation, the accreditation coordinator of a South Korean school was trying to pin down a set of peer and aspirant schools for her institution. While she had a few nominees in mind for her aspirant schools, she wanted to use data to more accurately identify her school s peer institutions, both within Asia and globally. Solution: Using the comparison group wizard within DataDirect, she develops a list of peer schools that closely match her own institution along a number of dimensions, including operating budget, faculty size, and degree programs offered. After establishing her peer group, she is able to benchmark her institution against those peers and gain confidence in putting forth nominations for her school s peer review team. Process: 1. Using the comparison groups tool, select new group wizard. 2. Select Asian regions as the basis for the regional comparison. 3. Choose appropriate survey variables, including full-time faculty strength and school operating budget. 4. Choose appropriate classifications, including institutional control, degree programs offered, and AACSB accreditation status. 5. Select search to generate a customized group of peer institutions with which you can create benchmarking reports. ACCREDITATION Comparable Schools for Accreditation 42 peer schools 32 aspirant schools 51 competitor schools
MARKETING Data User: Marketing Director At a Glance: How can we differentiate our school from local competitors?
Problem: Trying to get a business school brochure to catch the eye of a prospective student can be challenging. The marketing director of a private business school in France is developing just such a student-facing brochure, hoping it will set her school apart in a very competitive environment. Knowing that finding work soon after graduation is often of great interest to prospective students, she wants to find out how her school stacks up to other schools in her region in terms of postgraduation placement. Solution: She discovers that her school s MBAs find employment within three months of graduation at a better rate than other schools in the region. Further, she looks at the starting base salary for MBA graduates in her region and finds that her school places above the average by several thousand USD. Recognizing that these figures will look very favorable in their student brochure, she emails her findings to the rest of her marketing staff for their feedback. Process: 1. Create a comparison group of business schools in France. 2. Using the report writer tool, run a complete report using BSQ Employment Module (AACSB Sections) variables. 3. Choose the desired variables, including mean base salary, signing bonus (if applicable), and acceptance of employment time frame. 4. Select add selected variables and generate report. MARKETING Employment After Graduation 89% accepted employment within 3 months French School Comparison Group 82% accepted employment within 3 months $89,591 average salary $86,165 average salary
PLANNING Data User: Associate Dean At a Glance: Should we create a fully online master s-level degree program?
Problem: An advisory council convened to discuss the value of adding a fully online model into their graduate program portfolio. An argument was posed that an online model, if properly designed and marketed, would attract students from outside of their home country of Peru, expanding the school s presence internationally. The associate dean of graduate programming agreed that this idea was worth further consideration, and offered to research the growth of online programming in advance of their next meeting. Solution: The associate dean creates a five-year trend analysis that demonstrates a clear growth in the number of schools offering online degree programs at the master s level. To increase the value of his results for his school s specific needs, he also includes a variety of additional cuts, including discipline, institutional control, and region. He saves his data findings into a briefing to be distributed at the next advisory council meeting, and it sparks a more informed conversation regarding the development of an online degree program for his school. PLANNING Process: 1. Create a comparison group of schools that participated in the Business School Questionnaire (BSQ) in each of the last five years. 2. Using the quick reports tool, select the basic business school data summary (part 2). 3. Choose the appropriate custom comparison group and applicable survey year and select go to report. 4. Generate additional reports for each desired year. Global Growth in Business Schools Offering Master s-level Online Degree Programs 139 150 166 192 208 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
COLLABORATING Data User: Associate Dean for Faculty At a Glance: Which school should we develop a faculty exchange with?
Problem: The associate dean for faculty at a school in South Africa is looking to implement a new faculty exchange program with North America for undergraduate professors. He is hoping that this program will bring new ideas back to his campus, and that his own faculty will gain valuable experiences from working overseas in a different context. Unfortunately, he does not have a very strong list of contacts at North American schools and is searching for a streamlined way of identifying collaborative partners. Solution: Using the desired collaborations report, he identifies a set of 16 schools that desire a faculty -sharing collaboration with a school in his region. After going through each of the 16 schools profiles, he determines which school he wants to contact and writes an email to his peer in North America about the proposal. Process: 1. Create a comparison group of North American schools that participated in the Collaboration Survey. 2. Select the desired collaborations quick report (a complimentary benchmarking tool for all DataDirect users). 3. Filter for schools seeking collaborative partners by desired education level, southern African region, and collaboration type. 4. Select go to report to generate a set of schools desiring collaboration. 5. Click on a school s name to uncover additional information, including address, institutional control, and more. Alternative: Use the Collaboration Concourse function within the AACSB Exchange. The concourse draws from DataDirect s extensive database of contacts and their desired collaborations. COLLABORATING
MEMBER RESOURCES AACSB DataDirect With AACSB DataDirect, members can access customizable business school data that is vital to everyday decision-making. DataDirect doesn t just show you the data, it allows you to find exactly what you need in the format you need whether it s a customized report, specialized comparison group, table, chart, or percentile. Because DataDirect is the world s most comprehensive database on business schools, it provides vast quantities of data you won t find anywhere else. Visit aacsb.edu/datadirect for more information. Guides and Support Access the DataDirect user manual and tutorial videos to improve your experience while using DataDirect. These videos include step-by-step instructions for recreating the data collected in this guide. Get started at aacb.edu/datadirect/help. Collaboration Concourse The Collaboration Concourse serves as a virtual platform for member schools to explore and connect with other member schools around the world that wish to engage in collaborative partnership opportunities. Creating your profile is easy: Complete AACSB s semi-annual Collaboration Survey, which runs from mid- June to mid-july and again in November. Miss the data collection time frames? Send a request to datadirect@aacsb.edu to have your institution s survey reopened for participation. Please allow one week for reopening your survey. Establish your partnerships today at aacsb.edu/collaboration-concourse.
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