How SAS services improve higher education
As a SAS Silver Partner, we work with many enterprises and organizations from a wide array of industries, spanning from the government to healthcare, insurance, and many more. SAS services offer organizations within each of these segments unique features and functionality that improve the overall visibility they have into their operations.
Higher education institutions, in particular, stand to benefit significantly from implementing SAS software – whether it’s in the form of a platform to educate students in their analytics programs or as a system that provides valuable insights into the overall operations of the institute.
In this blog, we highlight several aspects of SAS services that higher education institutions benefit from. Let’s start off with how SAS software can be used as an educational tool.
SAS services for educational purposes
As much as SAS software is built and ready to help organisations gain insights immediately, it can also be very useful in helping universities and other institutions of higher education groom the next generation of data experts and analysts.
For example, the Melbourne Business School’s Master of Business Analytics program used Selerity’s services to architect, provision, and manage the entire analytics platform of the program. By utilising our services, the program was able to access a world-leading analytics platform, with the ability to be scaled up and down as required by the program administrators.
Given the cost-effectiveness of SAS, the relative ease of implementation/installation, and user-friendliness, we see SAS software being adopted across academic institutions around the world.
Analysing key metrics and attributes of an organisation
Stepping away from the topic of educational use, SAS software has industry-leading analytics capabilities that provide organisations with the ability to analyse key metrics. Given that most institutes of higher education depend on enrolment, understanding the trends and data behind their enrolment is critical. Why?
Understanding this data means that these institutions will be able to determine key insights such as the demographical characteristics of their students – where they are from, their gender, ethnicity, SAT scores, academic interests, and any other recorded metric. Having visual insights of this data will allow institutions to tailor their approaches to build on the positive trends and make adjustments to counteract negative trends.
With the existence of SAS partners, like Selerity, in place, installing and administrating this system anywhere in the world can be done seamlessly. As the world becomes more data-driven, decision-making processes of organisations like institutions of higher education will depend heavily on the insights generated via powerful SAS software.
Forecast future trends and plan accordingly
Building on the topic of analytics, SAS software can do more than just provide instantaneous “in-the-moment” analytics. Many organisations and institutions use the software as a means of forecasting future trends in key areas like enrolment, which is the determining factor behind how successful and sustainable any academic institution will be moving forward.
Using SAS software and its crisp user interface, institutions can review past trends, compare them to existing trends, and determine the trajectory going forward. On the topic of enrolment, if a university or school notices a downward trend of students enrolling at the business school and a positive trend for students enrolling in the engineering school, administrators would know where greater attention is required. With additional data analysis, administrators will even be able to point to what is causing the downward trend – poor professor/lecturer scores and reviews, poor facility ratings. Data analytics through SAS would make all the difference.
Customisability is key
Gone are the days where the one-size-fits-all mentality worked. Each organisation and institution is different in its own light and therefore the insights required by each one will also subsequently be different. This is especially true for institutes of higher education given the various differentiating features they have – focus of study (engineering, medicine, business, for example), level of education (vocational, undergraduate, post-graduate), and any other unique characteristic. This means that the level of data and analytics required by each institution would need to be different.
With SAS software in place, institutions will be able to build their own analytics portfolio via the system’s easy-to-use features that enable administrators to create insights on the fly, customised in a manner that is relevant to the institution. This remains one of SAS’ best and most sought-after features.
If you would like more information on SAS services, or, would like to get in touch directly, please reach out to us here. In the meantime, stay tuned to this feed for more from the world of SAS.
