(Hybrid) Institutional Research & Analytics Specialist - Office of Data Analytics

The Office of Data Analytics within Institutional Research at West Virginia University is currently accepting applications for an Institutional Research & Analytics Specialist.

About the Opportunity

The Office of Institutional Research seeks an Institutional Research & Analytics Specialist to complete required reporting and provide analytical support to institutional officers regarding admissions, enrollment, registration, graduates, personnel, financial aid and other productivity measures as needed. This position reports to the Assistant Director of Institutional Research. The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, resourceful, and able to effectively work both collaboratively and independently. Strong communication and organizational skills are required to complete tasks that require significant attention to detail and deliver effective end products

We strongly believe in work-life balance and keeping time for things we love outside our work. WVU offers generous benefits, including\:

• 37.5-hour work week
• 13 paid holidays (staff holiday calendar)
• 24 annual leave (vacation) days per year (employee leave)
• 18 sick days per year (for when you’re ill, for when you need time to care for sick family, for your own, or your family’s, regularly scheduled medical appointments. Who is family for the purpose of this leave? A lot of people in your life including immediate relatives and in-laws as well as others considered to be members of your household living under the same roof)
• WVU offers a range of health insurance and other benefits
• 401(a) retirement savings with 6% employee contribution match, eligibility to continue health insurance, and other retiree perks. Looking for more retirement benefits information? Check out retirement health insurance benefits, retirement income, and FAQ’s.
• Wellness programs

What You'll Do

Data Reasoning, Preparation, and Quality Assurance

• Extract, combine, transform, and validate data from multiple institutional systems and external sources.
• Utilize multiple technology applications including SAS, SQL, and data visualization tools to collect and analyze data and to prepare/present results.
• Evaluate the structure, grain, definitions, timing, and appropriate use of institutional datasets.
• Recognize and address issues involving duplicate records, one-to-many relationships, missing data, cohort definitions, changing populations, inconsistent definitions, and longitudinal data.
• Develop appropriate validation and reconciliation procedures before analytical results are released.
• Investigate unexpected results and determine whether they reflect meaningful institutional patterns or data-quality issues.
• Document analytical definitions, assumptions, methodologies, and business rules to promote reproducibility and institutional knowledge.
• Under guidance, contribute to institutional data governance, data definitions, and efforts to improve data consistency and accessibility.

SAS, SQL, and Data Development

• Use SAS as a primary institutional analytics platform for data preparation, analysis, automation, and reporting.
• Write and maintain SAS DATA step, PROC SQL, and other SAS programs used in recurring and ad hoc analytical workflows.
• Use SQL to retrieve, integrate, and analyze information from relational and cloud-based institutional data environments.
• Understand relational data concepts sufficiently to independently evaluate joins, record-level relationships, aggregation, and dataset construction.
• Develop efficient, repeatable, well-documented analytical workflows rather than relying exclusively on manual processes.
• Assist in maintaining and improving reusable institutional datasets and analytical data structures.

Tableau and Data Visualization

• Develop and maintain Tableau dashboards and other visual analytical products.
• Design visualizations around institutional questions and decisions rather than simply displaying available data.
• Create intuitive methods for leadership and other users to explore institutional trends while maintaining appropriate definitions and controls.
• Evaluate dashboards and reports for accuracy, usability, performance, and interpretability.
• Help establish consistent visualization, documentation, and reporting standards across Institutional Research and Analytics.

Institutional Research and Reporting

• Support recurring institutional research activities, internal reporting, external reporting, benchmarking, and data requests.
• Support colleges, academic, and administrative units by deriving official institutional data as needed for accreditation reports, grant writing efforts, and assessment activities in a timely manner.
• Assist with institutional and regulatory reporting such as IPEDS, Common Data Set, state reporting to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (HEPC), accreditation, surveys, rankings, and other institutional submissions as assigned.
• Work collaboratively with other university offices to complete official reporting.
• Develop standardized datasets and processes that reduce duplication between compliance reporting and analytical work.
• Analyze institutional data to support academic, enrollment, student-success, operational, and strategic decision-making.
• Translate broad or ambiguous institutional questions into measurable analytical questions and appropriate approaches.
• Conduct descriptive, comparative, longitudinal, cohort, trend, and exploratory analyses across institutional populations and programs.

Other Duties as Assigned