After two years of virtual meetings, NCAIR is holding an in-person conference!!! Yes, the association is Back Together Again!

Downtown Asheville, NC, at the Renaissance!

Photos

President’s Perspectives

Kelly Smith and Andrew Walker each share their perspectives on the conference.

Conference Theme: Back Together Again!

Agenda At a Glance:

Sunday Morning – Workshops
Sunday Evening – Networking on the 12th floor of the Renaissance
Monday Morning/Afternoon – Breakfast, general and breakout sessions, networking, snacks
Monday Evening – Networking and birds of a feather meetings
Tuesday Morning – Breakout sessions and business meeting; conference ends at noon

This more detailed agenda (click link) may be useful for planning your trip, and seeking travel approval from your institution’s business office.

The conference provides:

Industry-specific best practices
Participatory workshops
Networking opportunities
Vendor consultation opportunities
A great opportunity to make new friends and build relationships.

When you attend, you have the opportunity to meet with staff from every public university in North Carolina along with numerous public and private colleges and universities. This year, NCAIR is making a focused effort to increase our reach in the community college sector. As a result, we hope to glean even more analytics and accreditation best practices from a wide range of sectors. This is the one conference where every higher ed IR/IE office, and their IT and other colleagues who support them, convene in one place for the sole purpose of networking, teaching, and learning.

Costs:

Negotiated room rate is $164 per night at the Renaissance conference hotel
Registration fees are $300. Fulltime Students receive a discounted rate of $150

Sponsorship opportunities are available. More detail and contact information is available on that page, as well as a form for indicating interest.

Conference Sessions

As conference sessions are confirmed, they will be added here. As a preview of the sessions, here’s a word cloud based on the session abstracts:

Pre-Conference Workshops – free to registered attendees

IPEDS Workshop: Beyond Compliance, April 2 from 9-5 (pre-registration required; no cost)

This workshop is designed for individuals interested in utilizing IPEDS data to examine and measure student and institutional success. The first half of the workshop explores the five IPEDS surveys that contain academic performance metrics (Completions, Graduation Rates, 200% Graduation Rates, Fall Enrollment, and Outcome Measures). Through group discussion, activities, and lectures, participants will learn what the measurements can—and cannot—tell us about student and institutional performance. The second half of the workshop will involve hands-on activities to work through a series of case studies based on real-life scenarios. Participants will identify the question being asked in each case study; determine the best metric(s) to use to answer the question; extract data using the IPEDS tools; perform analyses; and present the data to answer the question. Participants will gain the knowledge needed to explore and answer questions at their institutions or organizations.

Note: Separate registration for this session is required by AIR — click this link, then the REGISTER button.

Workshop: Introduction to Power BI and Power Query, April 2, 8-Noon (no cost)

Do you want to learn how to use Power BI but never seem to have the time or know where to start? Well, now is the time and this is where to start. This workshop will introduce you to the basics of Power BI using Power BI Desktop while briefly looking at Power BI Service. You will learn some basic, but very useful, functions in Power BI (like uniquely counting students) and explore the capabilities of Power Query, the data loading tool that also powers Excel’s data loading capabilities. Attendees should be familiar with Excel and the basic functions in Excel like SUM and IF.

Note: Although free, please register separately for this session — click this link, then complete and submit the form.

UNC System Data Marts Workshop, April 2, 1-4:30 (no cost)

All users of the UNC System Data Mart are encouraged to attend this user group meeting, hosted by the System Office. Recent capabilities will be highlighted, and current and future plans discussed. While the emphasis will be on student data (SDM), human resource (HRDM) and finance data (FDM) will also be discussed, along with the Insight analytics platform. Topics will include:

Intro to the UNC Data Mart and the data ecosystem
Resources, SAS code, self-service reports, datasets and dashboards – what’s available and where
Future plans and roadmaps, including anticipated features and enhancements
Open forum/roundtable discussion — how you’re using the products, and offer suggestions for improvements or future capabilities for the roadmaps
That open discussion may lead to other topics of interest, such as
- Expected roles and responsibilities for institutions and the System Office, especially in IR and Data & Analytics
- Related workflow and communications
- Sharing practices, and skill building
- …other topics you raise

Note: While this is free and open to any, please complete this registration form (click this link) in advance to help us understand who is planning to attend, and your areas of interest.

Main Conference Sessions

Conference Program

[gview file=”https://nc-air.org/wp-content/uploads/NCAIR-2023-Program-FINAL-DRAFT.pdf”]