USF Information Technology is happy to announce that Jenny Paulsen, our Deputy Chief Information Officer, has recently been named a recipient of the University Technology Leader of the Year Award by EdScoop. The EdScoop 50 Awards honor influential people in the higher education technology community, along with innovative projects that make a positive impact across universities. Paulsen was recognized from a group of more than 200 nominated professionals.
During the 2021-22 academic year, Paulsen and the IT Analytics Team partnered with ASR Analytics to develop a data literacy program for the USF community. The program enables client technologists and employees who are engaged with data to learn self-service analytics skills and increase their data expertise through self-guided and instructor-led courses.
"I wanted to help create a platform that would allow the USF community to make data driven decisions, strengthening our partnerships with clients and our ability to deliver stronger data solutions,” said Paulsen. “Being able to make more strategic and informed decisions with our data means we can all make even greater contributions toward the advancement of USF and university goals.”
Moving from beginner to advanced training levels, users receive immediate feedback on their progress and badges for mastery, and they work with real data examples to reinforce learning. The program is also supported by a Microsoft Teams group where learners can ask questions, share tips, and collaborate with each other as part of a data literacy community.
Several departments across USF have reported that the new platform with training and an analytics data set has increased efficiency for their data and financial analysts. More than 70 users have started their data literacy journey with the program, with the training series specifically holding an overall satisfaction score of 90%. “The new financial analytics data set has literally changed my life,” said Ashley Leko from Athletics. “It allows me to create custom data sets to help make management decisions easier and quicker, and has dramatically reduced the amount of time spent on researching budget errors and other budget reporting items.”
Jennifer Condon, Associate Vice President and Controller, reports similar feelings for the Business and Finance Department. “The Bulls Data Hub has had a significant impact on helping us make USF a better place to work,” said Condon. “We give employees the tools that they need to do their job, we stop with all the mundane, and remind people that they are contributing to something that’s much greater than the day-to-day tasks.”
To learn more about the resources USF IT can provide to you or your clients, visit www.usf.edu/it/.