Benchmarking
From Business Intelligence
Benchmarking is the process of comparing the cost, time or quality of what one organization does against what another organization does. The result is often a business case for making changes in order to make improvements. Wikipedia offers a good overview of general approaches to benchmarking.
NACUBO (National Association of College and University Business Officers) defines benchmarking as: "...standard by which something can be measured, is used to compare peers to improve results. The key steps in getting started with benchmarking are: identifying the key metrics and indicators for your benchmarking purposes; defining a peer or comparison group; and finding the data to use". NACUBO benchmarking resources can be found here.
[edit] General Benchmarking Sources Applicable to Higher Education
Note a site listed here is not an endorsement of its validity in the context of the University of Michigan. Rather this is intended to inform you of some of the benchmarking resources available. As is the case with all benchmarking extreme care must be taken to discover the assumption and methodologies behind the data made available (e.g. the approach to calculating full-time faculty, or students can vary materially across institutions)
- Michigan Projections of High School Graduates from 1992-2022
- Voluntary System of Accountability-VSA University Profiles by State
- VSA Big-Ten Participating Schools: Purdue, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State, Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State
- IPEDS Mostly support University level reporting.
- UCAN Network This site contains information for private institutions only.
- College Results This site focuses on student graduation rates.
- Economic Diversity This site provides information focused on economic diversity of undergraduates.
[edit] University of Michigan Benchmarking Events/Resources
- The Business Intelligence Community of Experts held a benchmarking discussion in 2007, copies of the presentation and notes are available here.
[edit] School/College Specific Benchmarking Resources
- Ross School of Business
- AACSB (Association to Advance the Collegiate Schools of Business) Knowledge Services