Data Management in Higher Education: Best Practices to Overcome Data Silos

By eliminating silos through integration, higher education institutions can turn endless student, faculty and alumni data into actionable insights and turn complex IT landscapes into streamlined, scalable systems.

In today’s higher education landscape, institutions manage an increasingly complex web of student data. Without a unified approach, this data often exists in silos — spread across admissions, enrollment and administrative systems — making it difficult to gain a clear, institution-wide view.

For colleges and universities, a modern, agile approach to digital connectivity starts with eliminating these silos and improving data quality. Because when data is accurate and accessible, organizations are able to make better-informed decisions that support student success.

In this blog, we’ll explore best practices for higher education data management and how a data integration platform like Jitterbit Harmony simplifies connectivity and breaks down silos.

The Importance of Data Quality in Higher Education

Higher education is being reimagined with engagement and personalization as core to learning and student success. To stay competitive and compliant, educational institutions must manage data effectively across these three pillars:

• Communication: Continually communicate with students with the right information and in the right channels.
• On-site and eLearning: Provide new ways of teaching and eLearning capabilities.
• Engagement: Deliver a frictionless and engaging student experience to ensure student retention and success and to foster a long-term relationship as alumni.

Achieving this requires data that is both effectively managed and deeply integrated, from admissions to alumni relations. This enables a 360-degree view of the student journey and facilitates actionable data insights.

Benefits of Data Integration for Higher Education

Higher education runs on data, but without integration, that data stays stuck in silos. Connecting systems unlocks a unified view of the student journey, enabling more informed decisions, enhanced engagement and increased operational efficiency.

Automation of Manual Processes

Multiyear student, faculty, and curriculum data often live in different education databases, student data systems, and files. The data needs to be manually exported and uploaded to other databases to make decisions, respond to requests, and provide reporting.

The time lag in performing manual processes means that reporting cannot be done, decisions cannot be made, and students do not receive timely information until the manual uploads are completed. Automating these processes saves time, requires fewer resources, and reduces errors.

Support for the Entire Student Lifecycle

Today’s institutions manage every stage of the student journey using different systems and vendors. To engage students effectively, these systems must be integrated. At Taylor University, for example, the Salesforce platform powers admissions communications, while Banner handles applications and other administrative tasks. Using Jitterbit, Taylor syncs these platforms daily, ensuring counselors always have up-to-date insights into each student’s progress.

Faster Connection of New Systems

While custom, point-to-point integrations can be deployed as needed, custom code can be brittle and less malleable — making it harder for institutions to scale their tech stack.

A low-code data integration platform like Jitterbit Harmony adds scalability and speeds up integration by providing reusable components, such as projects, templates and recipes.

8 Best Practices for Higher Education Data Management

Managing data across a modern campus requires a strategic approach. These best practices help colleges and universities unlock more value from student data:

1. Prioritize Data Governance

Data governance is the set of principles and practices that ensure high-quality data availability. It is important to have an accurate 360-degree view of students and the organization. Treat data as a strategic asset: Start with executive buy-in and expand your governance framework over time to support data privacy, security and consistency.

2. Involve the Right Stakeholders Early

Effective data management requires input from the people who best understand the data and how it’s used. Engage teams across the institution — such as admissions, enrollment, student success, financial aid and IT—to collaboratively define, standardize and manage key data elements.

3. Determine Systems of Record

Understand and determine which systems are systems of record. Knowing which systems serve as the source of truth for each data element prevents data duplication and helps to simplify the overall data architecture.

4. Create Shared Definitions of Data

Create shared definitions of data. Establishing this common understanding prevents multiple definitions of the same data.

Without clearly defined data, a simple question like “How many students do we have?” can have multiple answers depending on the definition of “student” being used. For example, one report might count anyone enrolled on the official census date, while another might include only students with an active enrollment status, excluding students who have since withdrawn or are on leave.

5. Standardize Tools Across Systems

Limit the number of platforms to reduce complexity, and focus on tools that support scalability, compliance and security.

6. Map Data Early and Clearly

Determine early on what data is coming in and where the data will go. If there are two systems with similar data, organize the data, determine what data will go where, and retain the other data somewhere else. Create clear indicators on fields with common names. Additionally, when loading the data, sequence it so that the data points are always the most up-to-date.

7. Break Up Complex Integrations

Don’t try to boil the ocean — use a data integration platform like Jitterbit to break jobs up into multiple steps. For example, if data is being moved from Banner to Salesforce , create the following steps:

1. Run queries in Banner
2. Dump data into a temporary table in Banner
3. Make changes to get it in shape for Salesforce
4. Load to Salesforce using Jitterbit mapping

Simplify Data Mapping with Jitterbit’s AI Assistants

8. Create Backups for Recovery and Auditing

If a course is dropped or updated, backups and comparison tools allow for rapid reconciliation between systems.

For example, if a student drops a class in the first 10 days of a semester, the class needs to be deleted in the list of active courses in Salesforce to be in sync with Banner. If a school is using Jitterbit to copy Salesforce into spare tables of student information as a backup, SQL can be used to compare records between Banner and Salesforce to find the deletions. Here, too, Jitterbit can facilitate the deletions in Salesforce.

Unify Higher Education Data with Jitterbit Harmony

From improving student retention to streamlining resource allocation, Jitterbit helps higher education institutions unlock deeper insights and reduce administrative burden from their data.

Jitterbit Harmony, our low-code, AI-infused platform, makes it easy to:

• Connect student information systems, online portals, CRMs and financial aid platforms
• Integrate online learning platforms with data analytics tools to fuel improved student performance
• Integrate legacy tools with modern cloud platforms using low-code workflows
• Ensure data security, masking and compliance with regulatory requirements
• Gain real-time access to student data for personalized engagement and predictive analytics

With a centralized, scalable platform, colleges and universities can turn disconnected systems into a unified data ecosystem. Whether you’re modernizing legacy infrastructure or scaling student engagement strategies, Jitterbit Harmony brings it all together securely, efficiently and intelligently.